^' 


IRELAND 

AND  THE 
MAKING  OF  BRITAIN 


IRELAND 

AND  THE 

MAKING  OF  BRITAIN 


BENEDICT  FITZPATRICK 


With  Map  of  Medieval  Ireland  and  Britain 


Second  Edition 


BOSTON    COLLEGE    LIBRARY. 
CHESTNUT  HILL,  K.^bS. 

FUNK  &  WAGNALLS  COMPANY 

New  York  and  London 
1922 


Copyright,  1921,  by 
FUNK  &  WAGNALLS  COMPANY 

[Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America] 

Published  in  December,  1921 


Copyright  Under  the  Articles  of  the  Copyright  Convention 
of  the  Pan-Americas  Republics  and  the 
United  SUtea,  August  11,  1910. 


173440 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  ?AGE 

Preface ix 

I.    The  Stream  of  Civilization i 

(i)  Home   of   Western   Learning i 

(2)  Missionary  Instinct  of  Irish  Culture     ...  4 

(3)  Restoration  of  Civilization 6 

(4)  Variety  and  Extent  of  Irish  Medieval  Work    .  8 

II.    Lineaments  in  the  Conspectus 13 

(i)  Founders  of  Churches  and  Cities     .      .      .      .  13 

(2)  From  Iceland  to  the  Pyramids 17 

(3)  "Incomparably  Skilled  in  Human  Learning"    .  20 

(4)  The  Carolingian  Renaissance 24 

III.  Bridging  the  Old  World  and  the  New     ...  27 

(i)  Ark  of  Safety  for  the  Old  Wisdom     ...  27 

(2)  Ireland's  Educational  Proficiency    .      .      .      .31 

(3)  Centers  of  Intellectual  Activity 36 

(4)  Textbooks  and  Learned  Degrees     ....  38 

IV.  "High  Scholars  of  the  Western  World"   ...  42 

(i)  Learned  Classes  of  Laymen 42 

(2)  Great    Colleges    Simultaneously    Active    from 

Sixth  Century  Onwards 44 

(3)  "Philosophy"  and  "Wisdom" 46 

(4)  Numbers  of  Students 49 

V.    Insula  Sanctorum  et  Doctorum 52 

( 1 )  Intellectual  Leader  of  Christendom  ....  52 

(2)  Anglo-Saxon  Students  in  Ireland     ....  55 

(3)  Special  Colleges  for  Princes 57 

(4)  Going  to  Ireland  for  Education  Long  Continued  59 

VI.    Lay  Schools  and  Schools  of  Philosophy  ...  62 

(i)  Professional  and  Lay  Education  in  Ireland     .  62 

(2)  Synod  of  Drumceat,  575  A.  D 66 

(3)  Original  and  Independent  Culture  ....  67 

V 


Contents 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

(4)   Columbanus     and     Gregory — "Irish     Ancients 

Who  Were  Philosophers" 70 

VII.     Transmitting  the  Treasures  of  Ancient  Learn- 
ing   7i 

(i)  High  Culture  of  Ireland  a  Living  Reality     .  73 

(2)  Destruction  of  Irish  Libraries y6 

(3)  Irish  Genealogy  of  Carolingian  Schools     .      .  79 

(4)  Organizing  the  City  and  Christian  Society     .  82 

VIII.     Western  Civilization's  Base  of  Supply     ...  84 

(i)   Military  Strength  of   Medieval  Ireland     .      .  84 

(2)  Land  of  Enormous  Wealth 87 

(3)  Celtic,  Greek  and  Roman  Europe     ....  89 

(4)  Ireland's  Abundance  of  Gold 91 

(5)  Exodus  of  Irish  Scholars 94 

(6)  Parallel     Promulgation    of     Civilization    and 

Christianity 99 

IX.    The  Irish  Kingdom  of  Scotland io:a 

(i)  Two-fold  Invasion  and  Conquest     ....  102 

(2)  Ireland  of  the  Sixth  Century 104 

(3)  Ancient  Pagan  and  Medieval  Christian  Ireland  no 

(4)  The  Military  Conquest  of  Scotland     .      .      .113 

X.     Columcille,  Apostle  of  Scotland 116 

(i)  Archpresbyter  of  the  Gael 116 

(2)  A  Christian  Cuchulain 119 

(3)  The  Facts  of  His  Life 122 

(4)  His  Career  as  Monastic  Founder     ....  126 

XL     Columcille  and  Brethren  at  Iona 131 

(i)  The  Moving  World  of  Ireland  and  Britain     .  131 

(2)  Ritual  and  Ceremonial 134 

(3)  Literary  Work  and  Other  Occupations     .      .136 

(4)  Columcille  and  His  Friendships 140 

XII.     Death  of  Columcille 145 

(i)  The  Last  Scene  at  Iona 145 

(2)  Illuminated  Manuscripts  and  Latin  Poems     .  148 

(3)  By  the  Time  of  Adamnan 149 

(4)  The  tlibernicizing  of  North  Britain     .      .      .  152 

vi 


Contents 


CHAPTER 

XIII. 


XIV. 


XV. 


XVI. 


XVII. 


XVIII. 


PAGE 

Irish  Principality  in  Wales 157 

(i)  Gael  and  Sassenach  in  Britain 157 

(2)  Irish   Clans  in  Britain 160 

(3)  Irish  Military  Expeditions  Abroad  ....  163 

(4)  Irish  Kings  in  Britain 166 

(5)  Wales  Medieval  Irish  Colony 170 

Irish  Christianity  in  Wales 175 

(i)   Power  of  the  Gael  in  Britain I75 

(2)  Wales  Less  Enduringly  Irish  than  Scotland     .  178 

(3)  Irish  Foundations  in  Wales 181 

(4)  Irish   Intellectual  Intercourse  with   Britain     .  186 

(5)  Ireland's  Imperial  Status  and  Council  of  Con- 

stance   189 

Reclaiming  the  English  Tribes 193 

(i)   English  Ignorance  of  Debt  Owed  to  Irish     .    193 

(2)  Conversion  of  English  Delayed  by  Neglect     .    195 

(3)  Reputation  of  English  Aborigines  among  Civi- 

ized  Peoples 198 

(4)  Total  Helplessness  of  the  Barbarians     .      .      .  201 

Roman  and  Irish  Missionaries  in  England     .      .  204 
(i)   Mission  of  Augustine  a  Failure     ....   204 

(2)  Irish  Work  Beginning  of  English  Civilization   .   206 

(3)  Aidan  Among  the  English  Tribes     ....   207 

(4)  Irish  Prelate  and  Anglian  Kings     .      .      .      .211 

(5)  Enghsh  Natives  and  Their  Rulers  Sheltered  and 

Educated  in  Ireland 214 

First  Steps  OF  THE  English  IN  Civilization     .      .  216 
(i)   King  Oswin's  Veneration  for  Irish  Prelate     .   216 

(2)  Aidan  and  His  Foundations  in  England     .      .   219 

(3)  Finan  Succeeds  Aidan  and  Wins  Midland  En- 

gland     224 

(4)  Re-converts  Apostate  East  Saxons  ....   226 

(5)  Rise  of  the  Easter  Controversy 227 

Fruits  of  the  Irish  Apostolate  in  England   .  .  230 

(i)  "Celtic"  Usages  and  the  Synod  of  Whitby  .  .  230 

(2)  High  Birth  and  Breeding  of  Irish  Founders  .  232 

(3)  Frugality  and  Devotion  of  Irish  Clerics     .  .  234 

(4)  Colman  Founds  "Mayo  of  the  Saxons"     .  .  236 

vii 


Contents 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XIX.    Extending  Operations  Over  All  England     .     .  239 

(i)  Sentiment  of  Idolatry  for  Ireland  and  the  Irish  239 

(2)  Among  the  East  Anglians  and  West  Saxons   ,  240 

(3)  Irish  Channels  of  Entry  into  Britain     .      .      .   243 

(4)  Fursa  of  the  Visions 246 

(5)  Diuma,   Chad,  and  Ceallach  in  Mercia     .      .  248 

XX.     Centers  of  Irish  Influence  in  England     .     .     .  250 
(i)  Maelduf,  Founder  of  Malmesbury,  and  Other 

Irishmen  in  Wessex 250 

(2)  Founders  of  Abingdon,  Chichester  and  Lincoln  253 

(3)  Aldhelm  and  English  Students  in  Ireland  .      .  256 

(4)  Correspondence  Between  Aldhelm  and  Cellan  258 

XXI.    Irish  Tutelage  of  England 262 

(i)  Irish    Influence,    More    than    Roman,    Potent 

Among  English 262 

(2)  Theodore  and  "Molossian  Hounds"  at  Canter- 

bury       ....  264 

(3)  Irish  Plant  Arts  and  Industries  in  England     .  268 

(4)  By  the  Time  of  Bede  and  Alcuin     ....  271 

(5)  Irish  Scholars  and  King  Alfred     ....  274 

(6)  Irish  Literati  Before  and  After  Dunstan  .      .  276 

XXII.     Current  of  Irish  Civilization  in  England     .     .  280 
(i)  Whole  Art  of  England  Transplanted  Irish  Art  280 

(2)  Seed  of  Irish  Law  and  Opinion     ....  282 

(3)  Anglo-Saxon,     Mediocre    Imitation    of     Irish 

Civilization 285 

(4)  Incorrigible  Brutality  of  English  Aborigines     .  287 

(5)  Killing  English  Learning  at  Its  Birth     .      .      .  289 

(6)  Irish  Authority  Gives  Way  to  French   .      .      .  293 
Appendices 301 

(A)  The  English  Slave  Population  in  Ireland  .  301 

(B)  The  Irish  Province  of  Scotland     ....  314 

(C)  The  High  Monarchs  of  Ireland     ....  334 

(D)  Irish  Kings  of  Scotland 336 

(E)  Some  Works  of  Reference 337 

Index 339 


VllI 


PREFACE 

THIS  book  grew  into  being  as  the  earlier  half  of  a 
work  describing  the  efforts  of  medieval  Irishmen 
to  establish  civilization  in  continental  Europe  as 
well  as  in  Britain  following  the  downfall  of  the  Roman 
Empire.  As  the  work  neared  completion  it  was  seen  that 
the  activities  of  Irishmen  in  relation  to  the  different 
peoples  inhabiting  Britain  would  find  their  best  repre- 
sentation in  a  separate  and  independent  volume.  The 
relations  prevailing  between  medieval  Ireland  on  the  one 
hand  and  medieval  Wales  and  Scotland  on  the  other  were 
relations  of  a  kind  that  did  not  subsist  between  Ireland 
and  any  other  country.  In  both  these  countries  of  Britain 
there  were  Irish  military  conquests  and  political  settle- 
ments as  well  as  Irish  cultural  and  missionary  enterprises, 
and  both  Wales  and  Scotland  endured  for  centuries  as 
Irish  provinces,  colonies  and  political  dependencies. 
Among  the  English  the  work  of  medieval  Irishmen  par- 
took more  exclusively  of  the  character  of  Irish  missionary 
and  cultural  work  on  the  Continent.  Nevertheless  the 
relations  between  Ireland  and  England  in  that  era  were 
relations  of  a  special  and  peculiar  kind,  and  if  England 
before  the  so-called  Norman  Conquest  was  not  a  political 
dependency  of  Ireland  it  was  in  a  true  sense  a  moral  and 
intellectual  dependency. 

As  long  as  England  remained  really  England  its  people 
looked  not  to  the  Continent  but  to  Ireland  for  that  sus- 
tenance and  support  without  which  its  uncertain  civiliza- 
tion might  never  have  come  into  being  or  might  have 

ix 


Preface 

died  almost  at  birth.  Ireland,  the  mainspring  of  English 
civilization,  acted  also  as  its  foster-mother  till  the  in- 
vestiture of  the  land  by  Romance  rule,  learning,  and 
speech,  consequent  on  the  invasion  of  the  Norman  French, 
made  culture  in  England  at  last  self-sustaining  and  self- 
perpetuating. 

Between  the  era  of  the  Roman  and  the  era  of  the  Nor- 
man the  Irish  race  was  the  master  race  in  Britain,  evoking 
the  spontaneous  homage  and  emulation  of  Pict,  Briton, 
Angle  and  Saxon  by  reason  of  its  rounded  national  life 
and  rich  and  stable  civilization,  on  which  these  exterior 
peoples  were  permitted  to  draw  freely  as  the  main  reser- 
voir of  their  aspiration  and  development.  Withdraw 
out  of  the  picture  Ireland  and  the  influences  that  emanated 
from  it  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  history  of  what 
are  now  called  the  British  Isles  between  the  departure 
of  the  Roman  and  the  arrival  of  the  Norman  would  be 
represented  by  a  blank  almost  as  complete  as  the  vacuum 
registered  between  the  arrival  of  the  English  in  what  is 
now  England  and  the  arrival  of  Augustine  and  Aidan. 

The  part  played  by  successive  dynasties  of  Irish  spir- 
itual proconsuls  in  Britain  constituted,  however,  merely 
a  series  of  stages  in  the  vast  apostolate  which  the  Irish 
missionaries  of  civilization  were  carrying  forward  in 
almost  every  country  of  Europe.  The  account  of  the 
almost  incredible  work  performed  by  them  in  lands  other 
than  Britain  will  be  contained  in  a  second  book,  now 
also  nearly  completed,  to  which  the  present  volume  is 
largely  introductory.  The  two  books  will  represent  the 
first  comprehensive  attempt  to  describe  the  work  of  these 
medieval  Irishmen.  That  work  constitutes  the  crowning 
glory  of  Irish  history,  and  as  a  service  undertaken  by  the 
members  of  one  nation  for  the  benefit  of  members  of  other 


Preface 

nations  is  almost  without  a  parallel  in  history.  Had  it 
been  possible  to  credit  it  to  the  dominant  elements  in  any 
of  what  are  called  the  great  nations  of  modern  Europe 
a  whole  library  would  already  have  been  written  upon  it. 
But  being  the  work  of  Irishmen  it  has  shared  in  the 
general  suppression  under  which  Irish  studies  have  had 
to  labor.  I  do  not  flatter  myself  that  my  work  is  ex- 
haustive or  that  my  handling  of  it  is  worthy  of  the  theme. 
But  it  is  at  least  a  contribution  such  as  up  to  the  present 
no  other  individual  has  attempted  and  will,  I  hope,  serve 
as  a  belated  monument  to  the  memory  of  heroic  precur- 
sors of  our  age,  meet,  many  of  them,  assuredly  to  be 
ranged  among  the  famous  men,  of  whom,  in  the  words 
of  Pericles,  the  whole  earth  is  the  sepulcher. 

The  work  of  Irish  missionaries  in  England  was  neces- 
sarily of  an  elementary  and  preparatory  character.  On 
the  Continent,  among  more  highly  developed  peoples,  the 
Irish  schoolmen  had  opportunities  of  bringing  into  play 
that  many-sided  learning  and  skill  and  speculative  force 
and  ability  for  which  no  contemporary  parallel  could  be 
found  even  in  the  East.  Not  only  did  Irish  monks  and 
clerics  cultivate  classical  and  philosophical  studies  when 
heathen  philosophy  and  literature  were  anathema  to 
Christian  governors  elsewhere,  and  when  monasticism  on 
the  Continent,  as  among  the  Benedictines,  meant  merely 
flight  from  an  apparently  doomed  world,  but  Irish  lay- 
men also  pursued  learned  studies  and  carried  their  learn- 
ing abroad  about  a  thousand  years  before  an  educated 
laity  became  the  rule  in  other  lands.  The  continuous 
destruction  of  ancient  Irish  manuscripts,  which  has  been 
a  concomitant  of  the  English  ravishment  of  the  country 
from  the  sixteenth  century  onwards,  has  made  continental 
Irish  manuscripts  the  chief  witnesses  to  the  manifold  char- 

xi 


Preface 

acter  of  Irish  intellectual  activity  at  home  and  abroad.  Yet 
the  numerous  continental  manuscripts  can  only  have  been 
a  small  fraction  in  comparison  vv^ith  the  manuscript  litera- 
ture formerly  in  Ireland  itself. 

Till  the  sixteenth  century  Ireland  had  probably  the 
most  fortunate  history  of  any  country  in  Europe.  She 
escaped  the  devastating  grip  of  Roman  power.  When 
German  savages  carried  destruction  into  Britain  and  the 
continental  Roman  provinces  Ireland  remained  a  haven 
of  blissful  repose.  She  conquered  and  absorbed  the  Danes 
who  had  w^on  a  province  of  France  and  turned  England 
into  a  compound  of  slaves.  The  turbulent  and  victorious 
French,  who  soldered  rings  round  the  necks  of  English- 
men and  made  England  a  pendant  to  the  Norman  crown, 
she  bound  by  ties  of  devotion  surpassing  the  affection 
of  her  own  children.  In  the  tranquil  opening  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  from  which  her  nearest  neighbors  could 
look  back  in  suicidal  gloom  only  on  a  thousand  years  of 
degradation  and  slavery,  Ireland  had  behind  her  a 
luminous  track,  outdistancing  the  Christian  era,  of  un- 
broken independence  and  freedom.  The  sceptered  race 
of  Milesian  Gaels,  the  only  northern  people  with  a  history 
and  literature,  whose  least  considerable  families  owned 
authentic  pedigrees  older  than  the  claims  of  foreign 
kings,  still  held  sovereignty  in  the  land  which  they  had 
entered  during  the  great  Celtic  migrations  of  2,000  years 
before.  The  system  of  the  clan,  the  exact  equivalent  of 
the  Roman  gens,  had  been  transformed  with  the  estab- 
lishment of  surnames  in  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries, 
and  great  aristocratic  families,  Milesian  Irish  and  later 
Franco-Irish  also,  provided  the  land  with  its  kings,  its 
tanists,  and  its  officers  of  state.  No  foreign  conqueror 
had  ever  ridden  rough  shod  over  them.  No  domestic  tyrant 

xii 


Preface 

ever  broke  the  law  and  tradition  that  guarded  their  dignity 
as  free  sons  of  the  Gael.  To  the  sixteenth  century  indeed 
the  Irish  people  knew  as  little  about  slavery  as  their 
nearest  neighbors  knew  of  freedom. 

Preoccupation  in  the  tragedy  of  modern  Irish  history 
has  blinded  historians  to  the  unexampled  phenomenon 
of  a  nation  that  annihilated  or  absorbed  every  would-be 
conqueror  during  a  period  of  2,000  years.  The  French 
and  Cambro-French  warriors  who  entered  Ireland  from 
Britain  in  the  twelfth  century  seemed  to  themselves  to 
be  entering  a  new  world — "in  some  sort,"  they  said,  "to 
be  distinguished  as  another  world."  They  spoke  better 
than  they  knew.  From  the  Adriatic  to  the  Irish  Sea 
Europe  was  feudal  and  Romance.  In  Ireland  they  found 
a  Europe  that  existed  before  Rome  was,  an  original 
elemental  world,  illumined  by  Greco-Roman  culture. 
It  was  the  circumstance  that  Ireland  was  a  world  as  well 
as  a  state,  guarded  by  a  broad  and  unquiet  sea  from  foreign 
peril,  that  made  supererogatory  that  central  despotism 
which  the  hereditary  slave-mind,  adoring  the  emblems 
of  ancient  tyranny  from  which  it  has  been  physically 
freed,  accounts  essential  to  the  fashioning  of  a  nation. 
Ireland  stands  forth  in  the  world  of  the  West  as  the 
supreme  example  of  a  long-enduring  nation.  We  can  at 
this  stage  only  speculate  on  what  she  might  have  done  if 
left  free  to  develop  her  distinctive  genius.  Part  of  our 
duty  will  be  accomplished  if  we  can  throw  light  on  the 
character  of  some  of  her  performances  during  the  days  of 
her  miraculous  promise. 

This  work  embodies  no  attempt  to  write  a  history  of 
Ireland  during  the  centuries  indicated.  Events  and 
institutions  in  Ireland  are  referred  to  only  in  so  far  as 
they  bear  on  the  activities  of  Irishmen  abroad.     This 

xiii 


Preface 

has  involved  some  small  description  of  medieval  Ireland, 
of  the  seats  of  learning  in  Ireland,  and  of  noted  men  whose 
v^ork  was  accomplished  in  Ireland  itself ;  but  such  descrip- 
tion has  been  brought  in  with  strict  reference  to  Irish 
work  in  other  lands.  Any  further  consideration  of  the 
cultural  development  in  Ireland  would  have  been  far 
beyond  the  scope  of  this  work,  and  would  have  involved 
the  laying  under  large  tribute  of  the  extensive  medieval 
literature  of  Ireland,  both  Gaelic  and  Hiberno-Latin. 
The  evidence  on  the  other  hand  relating  to  the  activities 
of  Irishmen  beyond  the  Gaedhaltacht  will  be  found  to  be 
based  almost  wholly  on  foreign  testimony. 

The  references  given  in  the  foot-notes  represent  only 
some  of  the  sources  which  have  been  explored.  The 
volumes  consulted  might  be  numbered  by  the  hundred, 
and  I  have  habitually  gone  back  to  original  and  con- 
temporary authorities  where  these  were  available.  In 
connection  with  the  general  subject  of  Irish  medieval 
work  I  have  waded  repeatedly  through  the  great  collec- 
tions— Migne,  the  Rolls  Series,  the  Monumenta  Ger- 
maniae  Historica,  the  various  Acta,  the  proceedings  of 
German  and  French  societies  and  the  like — and  have  fol- 
lowed every  sort  of  clue  through  the  borderlands  and  back- 
ground of  my  subject  in  whatever  direction  the  path  might 
lead.  This  however  while  indispensable  Is  only  second- 
ary work.  To  give  life  and  unity  to  his  narrative  the 
historian  ought  to  be  able  to  write  of  persons  and  events 
with  the  familiarity  and  understanding  almost  of  an 
eyewitness  and  contemporary,  and  this  condition  of 
illumination  can  be  present  only  as  a  result  of  an  unflag- 
ging interest  In  his  subject  and  continuous  meditation 
upon  it.  And  tho  this  composition  from  its  pioneer  char- 
acter falls  short  of  being  an  historical  narrative,  it  could 


Preface 

never  have  come  into  being  save  as  a  labor  of  love  and  as 
the  product  of  continuous  thinking  and  research  covering 
a  number  of  years. 

I  have  had  no  collaborators  in  this  work  and  on  dis- 
puted points  germane  to  the  subject  have  had  to  rely  on 
my  solitary  judgment,  but  I  have  been  the  recipient  of 
services  for  which  acknowledgment  ought  to  be  made. 
And  first  of  all  I  owe  an  expression  of  thanks  to  Mr. 
Richard  Dufify,  numerous  suggestions  from  whom  aided 
greatly  in  the  final  shaping  of  the  work  and  who  took 
on  himself  much  labor  of  another  kind.  And  thanks  are 
due  also  to  Mr.  Liam  R.  MacEocagain,  frequent  dis- 
cussion with  whom  enabled  me  to  try  out  some  historical 
reconstructions;  to  Mr.  J.  Dominick  Hackett,  who  on  fre- 
quent occasions  put  at  my  disposal  his  facilities  in  the 
mechanical  part  of  the  work ;  and  to  Mrs.  Cecelia  Walters 
Harrigan,  who  aided  me  in  the  work  of  revision.  With 
this  I  submit  the  book  to  the  public,  hoping  it  will 
please  some,  resigned  to  the  fact  that  it  may  displease 
others,  knowing  it  to  be  imperfect  as  all  things  human  are 
imperfect,  but  confident  that  in  all  essentials  it  is  sound 
and  true,  and  capable  of  withstanding  every  attack  that 
may  be  made  upon  it. 

Benedict  Fitzpatrick. 


XV 


Ireland  and  the  Making 
of  Britain 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  STREAM  OF  CIVILIZATION 

I.  Home  of  Western  Learning.  2.  Missionary  Instinct  of  Irish  Culture. 
3.  Restoration  of  Civilization.  4.  Variety  and  Extent  of  Irish 
Medieval  Work. 

I.  Home  of  Western  Learning 

A  UNIVERSITY  professor  brought  out  not  long 
ago  a  history  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  which  the 
name  of  Ireland  did  not  once  occur.  The  professor 
did  not  dwell  in  the  land  of  Laputa,  where  the  academi- 
cians carry  their  heads  tilted  at  right  angles  to  their 
bodies,  with  one  eye  turned  inward  and  the  other  on  the 
zenith;  but  he  had  recourse  to  methods  in  favor  on  that 
philosophical  island.  Obedient  to  a  political  tradition  of 
obscurantism  he  turned  a  blind  eye  to  facts  lying  broadly 
before  his  feet  while  intent  on  others  far  away.  There 
are  few  facts  in  European  history  broader  or  more  distinct 
than  the  role  played  by  Ireland  in  the  early  Middle  Ages. 
In  that  period  indeed  the  history  of  Ireland  was  almost 
the  history  of  Europe. 

Elsewhere  in  Europe,  It  Is  true,  men  were  born  and 
lived  and  died,  and  generation  succeeded  generation  amid 
the  monuments  of  a  once  glorious  civilization.  But  the 
human  generation  came  and  went  much  as  the  quadruped 

2 — June  22.  I 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of   Britain 

generation  came  and  went.  There  was  no  growth,  no 
development,  little  heritage  received  from  the  past,  no 
increment  transmitted  to  the  future.  Men  lived  as  if 
in  a  sleep,  and  if  they  partly  awoke  it  was  as  tho  to 
play  roles  in  grizzly  nightmares,  in  which  thundered  the 
crash  of  falling  empires  and  the  brute  passions  of  man 
disported  themselves  in  a  drama  of  hell  let  loose.  Intel- 
lectual activity,  stability  and  progress  found  their  theater 
almost  in  Ireland  alone.  The  stream  of  civilization, 
which  had  gathered  its  waters  from  tributaries  having 
their  rise  in  India,  Egypt,  Persia,  Assyria  and  other 
ancient  centers,  and  which  had  run  its  broadest  and 
deepest  course  in  a  channel  carved  by  an  alliance  of  Greek 
and  Roman  culture,  had,  following  the  inrush  of  bar- 
barians and  the  fall  of  Rome,  once  again  become  divided 
and  deflected  so  as  henceforth  to  run  partly  in  the  East 
and  partly  in  Ireland.  At  the  threshold  of  the  Middle 
Ages  the  regions  that  recognized  the  sway  of  Constanti- 
nople became  the  heirs  to  Greek  culture  and  the  Greek 
language.  But  the  immediate  heir  to  Roman  culture, 
and  such  Greek  culture  as  went  with  it,  was  not  conti- 
nental Europe  but  a  land  that  had  never  bent  to  Roman 
authority.  With  the  close  of  the  period  of  antiquity 
Ireland  became  the  home  of  western  civilization  and 
remained  almost  its  sole  home  for  hundreds  of  years. 

It  is  true  that  there  remained  something  of  the  old 
Greco-Roman  culture  in  Spain;  but  the  isurvival  was 
feeble  and  showed  neither  health  nor  strength  till  re- 
newed and  cultivated  by  the  Saracen  invaders.  It  is  true 
that  in  England  also  there  appeared  after  its  Christianiza- 
tion,  an  occasional  exotic  bloom  of  culture  on  the  rank 
soil  of  a  primitive  barbarism.  But  English  culture  was 
only  a  pale  reflex  of  Irish  culture.     It  was  a  culture 

2 


The   Stream   of   Civilization 


planted  by  Irish  hands  and  that  seldom  blossomed  except 
when  Irish  hands  were  there  to  tend  it.    The  civilization 
of  Anglo-Saxon   England  was  not   a   self-perpetuating 
civilization.    There  were  men  among  the  early  English 
here  and  there  who  raised  themselves  by  prodigious  effort 
above  the  mud  and  blood  in  which  the  mass  of  their 
countrymen  dragged  their  lives.    But  they  died  in  gloom 
and  they  had  no  heirs  or  successors.     Schools  of  note 
also  arose  from  time  to  time  in  England;  but  they  were 
short  lived.     Canterbury  died  with  Theodore  and  Adrian 
who  established  it.    Jarrow  died  with  Bede.    York,  the 
most  noted  of  the  English  schools,  of  which  the  chief 
ornament  was  Alcuin,  had  a  life  of  hardly  fifty  years. 
But  of  the  great  Irish  schools  few  fell  by  the  wayside. 
Armagh,  Clonmacnois,  Clonfert,  Clonard,  lona,  Bangor, 
Moville,    Clonenagh,    Glendalough,    Lismore,    and  the 
others,  great  monastic  cities  and  studia  generalia,  centers 
of  all  the  studies  and  all  the  arts  and  industries  of  their 
time,  well  over  thirty  in  number,  with  a  huge  train  of 
lesser   lay   and    professional    schools,    maintained   their 
magnificent  course  almost  to  the  close  of  the  Middle 
Ages.    Founded  in  the  fifth,  sixth,  and  seventh  centuries, 
most  of  them  were  in  full  vigor,  despite  Danes  and  despite 
conflagrations,   when    the    first   Norman    and   Angevin 
French,  a  century  after  they  had  taken  England  from  the 
English,   settled   in    Ireland    toward   the    close   of    the 
twelfth  century,  and  some  of  them  endured  till  the  begin- 
ning of  the  English  devastations  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
Armagh,  founded  three  centuries  before  Bagdad,  was,  in 
1 169,  under  the  authority  of  the  High  King  Ruadhri,  of 
the  Ua  Concubhair  dynasty,  erected  into  a  national  uni- 
versity for  all  Ireland  and  all  Scotland. 

In  that  age  there  had  been  nothing  comparable  with 

3 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

this  sustained  continuity  in  any  land,  save  perhaps  the 
wonderful  succession  of  scholarchs  in  the  groves  of 
Academe  from  the  time  of  Plato  to  the  time  of  Justinian. 
The  existence  of  these  Irish  schools,  annually  receiving 
crowds  of  foreign  students,  annually  sending  crowds  of 
graduates  and  preceptors  to  other  lands  nurturing  the 
entire  western  world  through  a  thousand  channels,  visible 
and  invisible,  is  almost  the  central  phenomenon  of  the 
early  Middle  Ages.  The  literary  output  must  have 
rivaled  the  fecundity  of  the  Syrians  under  the  Abassidae 
or  of  the  schoolmen  of  the  age  of  Aquinas  and  Duns 
Scotus,  over  a  period  more  prolonged  than  was  given 
to  either.  And  Irish  as  well  as  Latin  was  the  literary 
vehicle.  The  early  medieval  glosses  extant  in  the  Irish 
tongue,  marvelously  developed  thus  early  to  express  the 
most  delicate  shades  of  feeling  and  thought,  exceed  the 
contemporary  scholia  in  all  the  living  languages  west  of 
Constantinople  put  together.^ 

2.  Missionary  Instinct  of  Irish  Culture 

It  is  only  in  the  nature  of  things  that  an  intellectual 
energy  so  abounding  should  in  course  of  time  overflow 
the  confines  of  Ireland  itself  and  extend  its  operations  to 
other  lands.  The  field  open  to  the  missionary  instinct  of 
Ireland's  Christianized  civilization  was  assuredly  wide, 
for  from  Britain  and  Merovingian  France  almost  to  the 
confines  of  Asia  a  wilderness  of  barbarism  presented  an 
almost  unbroken  surface.  In  the  year  529  the  Emperor 
Justinian  had  closed  the  school  of  Athens.  But  the  schools 
of  Constantinople  were  still  flourishing  and  the  relics  of 
the  Brucheion  and  Serapeum  of  Alexandria  had  not  yet 
been  swept  by  Arab  hordes.     Between  Constantinople 

1  They  have  been  collected  in  Thesaurus  PalaeohibernicuSj  2  Vols.,  edited 
by  Stokes  and  Strachan. 

4 


The  Stream  of  Civilization 


and  Egypt  the  schools  of  Antioch,  of  Gandispora,  of 
Nisibus  and  other  centers  formed  a  garland  that  bloomed 
with  a  luster  almost  comparable  for  a  time  with  the 
splendor  of  the  great  establishments  in  Ireland.  But 
their  course,  outside  of  Constantinople,  was  uncertain  and 
the  culture  transmitted  by  them  was  communicable  west- 
ward only  over  the  area  of  Greek  speech.  In  the  lands, 
formerly  included  in  the  western  Roman  Empire,  where 
Latin  was  the  medium  of  Christianity  and  education, 
there  hardly  existed  a  school  in  the  full  meaning  of  the 
term,  save  such  as  had  already  been  established,  directly 
or  indirectly,  by  Irish  hands. 

It  was  during  this  period  of  transition  and  under  these 
conditions  that  the  work  of  what  has  at  times  been  called 
the  "Irish  Mission"  got  under  way.  The  counterpart  to 
Greek  and  Saracen  culture  in  the  East,  Irish  culture  in 
the  West  showed  a  missionary  instinct  almost  unknown 
to  the  Byzantine  and  known  to  the  Saracen  only  in  the 
lust  of  military  conquest.  Then  began  that  dispersal, 
which,  in  its  dimensions,  its  passion  and  its  potency,  has 
since  stood  forth  as  one  of  the  great  enigmas  of  history. 
Pelagius  the  Heresiarch  and  Sedulius  the  Poet  have  per- 
haps been  rightly  acclaimed  as  the  first  in  point  of  time 
of  that  streaming  Irish  host  that  was  to  continue  to  flow 
for  nearly  a  thousand  years.  Harbingers  and  precursors 
of  the  great  army  that  was  to  follow  Columbanus  in  the 
next  century,  both  of  them  probably  from  the  Irish  colony 
in  what  is  now  Wales,  they  gave  the  first  proofs  in  the 
Roman  theater  of  the  mettle  of  the  Irish  intellect  then 
in  process  of  being  Christianized.  Following  immedi- 
ately on  Pelagius  and  Sedulius  the  stream  is  not  readily 
discernible,  but  it  is  there,  and  it  continues  to  increase  in 
volume.    In  the  sixth  century  it  bears  with  it  the  founders 

5 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of  Britain 

of  a  host  of  monasteries  in  France,  Switzerland,  and 
Italy.  In  the  eighth,  ninth  and  tenth  centuries  it  is  at  the 
high  flood-tide.  Irishmen  arrive  on  the  Continent  "like 
bees  from  a  hive,"^  they  pour  over  it  "like  an  inunda- 
tion";^ they  come  in  "troops  of  philosophers,'"  medieval 
w^riters  tell  us.  Then  the  stream  grov\^s  thin  again  and 
finally  disappears.  Duns  Scotus,  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
may  be  considered  the  brilliant  ending,  a  splendid  flash 
of  the  water  in  the  sun,  before  the  stream  enters  the 
ground  again.  But  the  stream  had  run  for  something 
like  nine  hundred  years.  What  set  it  running?  Whence 
and  wherefore  this  noble  procession  of  theologians  and 
apostles,  of  monastic  legislators  and  founders,  of  philos- 
ophers and  schoolmen,  of  pioneers  and  martyrs,  of  monks 
and  hermits,  of  architects  and  poets,  of  builders  and  states- 
men, of  men  and  w^omen,  who  compassed  the  orbit  of 
human  possibility  in  passionate  energy  of  word  and  deed? 
What  manner  of  men  were  they?  Whence  did  they  derive 
their  culture?  What  motives  prompted  them?  Whatwork 
did  they  actually  accomplish?  It  is  the  purpose  of  this 
work  to  give  a  partial  answer  to  these  questions,  in  so  far 
as  it  can  be  given  by  a  general  indication  of  their  labor 
throughout  Europe  and  a  more  detailed  study  of  it  in  the 
lands  within  the  immediate  circle  of  Irish  influence. 

3.    Restoration  of  Civilization 

While  there  is  much  about  these  Irishmen  that  is  likely 
to  remain  something  of  a  mystery,  we  can  at  least  seek 
to  estimate  their  work.  Their  work  and  their  mission 
had  as  end  and  result  nothing  less  than  the  restoration 
of  civilization.     A  mission  so  sublime  was  not  likely  to 

1  St.  Bernard,  Vita  Malachiae. 

-  St.   Bernard,  Ibid. 

3  Eric  of  Auxerre,   Vita   S.   Germani,   Praef. 


The   Stream  of  Civilization 


enter  into  the  ambitions  of  men  so  contemptuous  of  earthly 
glory.  There  was  nothing  of  military  organization  about 
them,  though  much  of  military  discipline.  They  did 
not  gather  together  a  vast  intellectual  army,  and,  with 
Ireland  behind  them  as  a  base  of  supply,  advance  on 
Europe  with  a  view  to  its  moral  conquest.  Their  methods 
were  much  less  grandiose.  They  descended  on  Europe 
as  single  individuals  or  in  groups,  sometimes  as  pilgrims 
or  travelers,  sometimes  as  ascetics  seeking  a  voluntary 
exile,  sometimes  as  spiritual  athletes  in  voluntary  immola- 
tion, sometimes  also  as  conscious  teachers  and  preachers  and 
traders  in  wisdom.  One  group  had  little  knowledge  often 
of  what  another  group  was  doing.  Masters  themselves 
of  all  the  knowledge  of  their  time  they  became  the  natural 
leaders  and  instructors  of  the  peoples  among  whom  they 
went  to  dwell.  Men  gathered  round  them  and  their 
homes  became  the  kernels  of  cities  that  were  to  be.  They 
passed  also  from  one  place  to  another  as  true  apostles, 
the  living  similitudes  of  the  missionaries  of  civilization 
from  the  beginning  of  time.  Their  work  has  lived  after 
them  and  will  endure  forever.  They  were  the  true  makers 
of  Christendom  and  usherers-in  of  the  modern  world. 
''They  were,"  says  a  German  writer,  "instructors  of  every 
known  branch  of  the  science  and  learning  of  the  time, 
possessors  and  bearers  of  a  higher  culture  than  was  at 
that  period  to  be  found  anywhere  on  the  Continent  and 
can  assuredly  claim  to  have  been  the  pioneers — to  have 
laid  the  corner-stone  of  western  civilization  on  the  Conti- 
nent, the  rich  results  of  which  Germany  shares  and  enjoys 
to-day  in  common  with  all  other  civilized  nations."^ 

Christianity  came   to   Ireland   along  a  path   already 
beaten  by  Greco-Roman  learning  in  a  period  when  the 

1  Zimmer,  Preussiche  Jahrbiicher,  59.  Jan.  18S7,  pp.   26-59;  translated,  "The 
Irish  Element  in  Medieval  Culture,"  by  J.  L.  Edmonds   (1891),  p.  130. 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

isle  of  the  Gael  was  in  the  full  tide  of  military  conquest. 
So  in  an  inscrutable  manner  the  military  prowess  that 
had  carried  the  high-king  Dathi  on  the  heels  of  Roman 
rearguards  to  the  foot  of  the  Alps  and  almost  secured 
to  Ireland  the  enduring  hegemony  of  what  are  now  called 
the  British  Isles  bent  itself  to  the  Christian  yoke.  The 
fierce  intoxication  of  mortal  combat  on  the  field  of  battle 
ceased  to  allure  the  Irish  heart,  overtaken  and  surprized 
by  the  doctrines  of  the  new  religion.  Instead,  Christian 
temples  and  schools  arose  over  the  land  and  a  new  army 
of  mental  and  moral  champions  succeeded  to  the  warrior 
hosts  of  the  Fianna.  In  their  persons  the  Celt,  the  GaeP 
and  the  Gaul  returned  as  spiritual  knights-errant  to  the 
insular  and  continental  fields  over  which  in  ultra- 
Roman  days  ancestral  Keltoi  and  Galli  had  wielded  em- 
pire from  history's  dawn.  And  the  area  over  which  the 
Irish  Gaels  carried  the  evangel  of  civilization  was  not 
inferior  to  the  vast  region  that  knew  the  Celt  as  lord  when 
he  parleyed  with  Alexander,  sacked  Delphi  and  Rome, 
lent  his  dying  body  to  the  Pergamene  sculptor,  and  fought 
his  last  continental  fight  with  the  legions  of  Caesar. 

4.  Variety  and  Extent  of  Irish  Medieval  Work 

While  there  were  very  few  countries  in  Europe  where 
Irish  missionaries  and  schoolmen  did  not  dispense  their 
services,  their  work  differed  in  character,  in  degree  and 
in  result  in  each  of  them.  Their  chief  work  was  in  France, 
Germany,  Switzerland,  the  Low  Countries,  England, 
Scotland,  and  north  Italy.  What  is  now  called  Scotland 
was  the  first  theater  of  their  operations  and  Irish  mis- 
sionaries Christianized  and  civilized  it  while  Irish  sol- 

1  Gaedhal  or  Gael  is  the  word  in  the  Irish  tongne  for  "Irishman."  Scotu^ 
is  the  Latin  word  for  "Irishman."  Scotia  and  Hibernia  are  the  Latin  words  for 
"Ireland."     Scotland  means  "land  of  the  Irish."     See  Appendix  B. 

8 


The  Stream  of  Civilization 


diets  and  colonists  gradually  reduced  it,  turning  the  old 
Caledonia  into  the  Irish  province  of  Scotia  Minor,^  or 
Lesser  Ireland,  which  it  has  since  in  essentials  remained. 
Irishmen  were  also  powerful  in  what  is  now  called  Wales, 
parceling  it  out  into  princely  estates  "so  that  the  Gael 
dwelt  not  less  on  the  east  coast  of  the  sea  than  in  Erin." 
The  Irish  ruled  Wales  as  a  military  colony  even  in  Roman 
times  and  it  continued  an  Irish-speaking  province  from 
the  second  almost  to  the  eighth  century.  The  fact  that 
in  Wales,  differing  from  Scotland,  the  evidences  of  Irish 
occupation  have  been  in  main  obliterated,  has  made  its 
former  condition  an  obscure  chapter  in  history. 

As  the  Romans  left  Britain  there  were  repeated  at- 
tempts by  Irish  military  forces  to  conquer  what  is  now 
England,  and  the  Irish  campaign  in  England  was  carried 
on  almost  simultaneously  with  the  more  successful  cam- 
paign in  what  is  now  Scotland.  The  attempted  conquest  of 
England  failed,  partly  because  Irishmen  were  at  this  time 
being  converted  to  Christianity  and  in  their  early  fervor 
renounced  their  foreign  enterprises.  When  the  southern 
part  of  Britain  became  England,  however,  it  was  devoted 
Irishmen  who  rescued  the  English  from  their  primeval 
savagery  and  heathenism  and  first  brought  them  into  the 
circle  of  Christianity  and  civilization.  Augustine's  mis- 
sion to  England  was  an  almost  complete  failure  and  his 
successors  fled ;  while  for  the  greater  part  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  period  Irishmen  taught  and  led  the  English. 
Where  the  Romans  signally  failed  Irishmen  signally  suc- 

1  The  terms  "Scotus"  and  "Scotia"  -when  used  by  Roman  and  medieval 
■writers,  refer  to  the  Irishman  and  Ireland.  The  term  "Scotia"  only  came  to 
be  applied  to  what  is  now  Scotland  after  the  Irish  had  consolidated  their  con- 
quest and  colonization  of  that  country,  making  it  part  of  the  Gaedhaltacht. 
See  Skene,  Celtic  Scotland,  I.  Intro,  p.  1  seq. ;  Hill  Burton,  Hist,  of  Scotland, 
I.  200  seq. ;  Ossianic  Society,  V. ;  Holder,  Alt-Celtischer  Sprachschatz,  Bd.  IT. 
1902,  col.  1406-18  ;  Ussher,  Britannicarum  Ecclesiarum  Antiqultates,  Works,  VI. 
266   eeg. 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of   Britain 


ceeded.  They  built  the  first  schools  in  England — 
Lindisfarne,  Malmesbury,  Whitby,  Glastonbury,  and  the 
others.  They  ruled  the  English  as  bishops.  They  taught 
them  to  read,  to  write,  to  build,  to  work  metals,  and  to 
illuminate  books.  They  delivered  them,  as  far  as  they 
were  able,  from  the  excesses  of  barbarism  and  taught  them 
the  truths  of  the  Christian  faith.  They  not  only  taught 
the  English  in  England  but  they  sent  them  by  the  ship- 
load to  Ireland,  where  they  were  received,  and  provided 
with  food,  shelter,  and  education  and  sometimes  with  col- 
leges and  farms  without  pa3^ment  of  any  kind.  Before 
the  French  or  Norman  conquest  Irish  influence  in  En- 
gland was  all  pervading.  The  English  knew  almost  no  art 
but  Irish  art,  almost  no  civilization  but  Irish  civilization. 
So  that  of  the  relics  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  period  that  have 
come  down  to  us,  there  is  hardly  an  object,  whether  a 
manuscript  or  a  jewel,  whether  a  piece  of  sculpture  or 
a  piece  of  architecture,  that  Is  not  either  wholly  Irish  in 
character  or  with  Irish  characteristics. 

Their  work  In  other  lands  was  equally  noteworthy.  The 
Irish  were  the  first  missionaries  In  Germany,  and  Ger- 
many had  In  the  main  been  made  a  Christian  land  by  them 
when  Boniface,  who  has  been  called  the  Apostle  of  Ger- 
many, first  arrived  there.  Near  and  along  the  Rhine 
they  established  the  great  monasteries  which  were  to  be 
the  cradles  of  German  civilization,  St.  Gall,  Reichenau, 
Rheinau,  Honau  and  the  others.  Columbanus  and  his 
disciples  founded  over  a  hundred  monasteries  in  France 
and  central  Europe,  many  of  them  noble  abbeys  enduring 
to  this  day.  But  their  field  was  wider  still.  Irish  scholars, 
missionaries,  pilgrims  and  travelers  are  found  as  far  north 
as  Iceland,  which  Irish  mariners  discovered,  and  as  far 
south  as  Carthage  and  the  Nile  valley.    They  traded  In 

10 


The  Stream  of  Civilization 


the  Dneiper  valley  and  preached  along  the  Elbe.  They 
formed  literary  colonies  in  Liege,  Toul,  Cologne,  Milan, 
Salzburg,  Rheims,  Tours,  Aix-la-Chapelle,  Verdun, 
Metz,  Cambrai,  Rome,  Constantinople,  and  other  centers. 
They  sent  out  scientific  expeditions  to  measure  the  Pyra- 
mids and  to  explore  the  Red  Sea.  They  scoured  the 
northern  and  southern  seas  for  islands,  and  besides  Iceland 
they  discovered  the  Faroe  Islands  and  seem  to  have  known 
the  Azores. 

In  the  Carolingian  era  they  were  teachers  in  every 
cathedral  and  school.  They  initiated  and  conducted  the 
Carolingian  revival,  a  movement  of  far  more  import  to 
Europe  than  that  later  renaissance  which  has  appropriated 
the  name.  In  the  ninth  century  their  intellectual  prestige 
was  so  great  that  a  minister  of  Charles  the  Bald  hailed 
them  as  rivals  of  the  Greeks  and  it  became  the  fashion  of 
the  literati  of  Laon  to  study  the  Irish  language^  and 
Irish  literature  as  at  Rheims  Greek  was  studied  under 
Irish  preceptors,  who  in  that  age  were  the  sole  possessors 
of  Greek  learning  in  the  West.  In  their  scriptoria  the 
Roman  classics  were  reproduced  and  preserved.  Alone 
in  Europe  in  that  age  they  cultivated  pagan  literature 
side  by  side  with  Christian  divinity.  The  oldest  of  several 
of  the  Roman  classics  are  Irish  manuscripts.  Irish  foun- 
dations proved  the  great  treasure  houses  of  the  master- 
pieces of  ancient  Roman  literature,  and  the  list  is  long 
of  those  Roman  authors  for  whose  survival  we  are  in- 
debted to  Irish  scribes  and  Irish  foundations.    They  were 

1  We  can  best  judg-e  of  the  development  of  the  Irish  language  at  this  period 
by  the  extant  eighth  and  ninth  century  Irish  commentaHes  and  glosses  which 
stand  on  a  high  level  by  comparison,  for  example,  with  old  High  German  glosses: 
"We  find  here  a  fully  formed  learned  prose  style  which  allows  even  the  finest 
shades  of  thouglit  to  be  easily  and  perfectly  expressed,  from  which  we  must 
conclude  that  there  must  have  been  a  long  previous  culture  (of  the  language), 
going  back  at  the  very  latest  to  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  oeoitury."  (Meyer, 
Kultur  der  Gegenwart,  part  I,  sect.  XI,  p.  80.) 

II 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of   Britain 

not  merely  the  greatest  scribes,  but  the  greatest  artists, 
miniature  painters,  metal-workers,  stone-cutters  and 
skilled  craftsmen  of  their  age.  There  is  no  more  beautiful 
book  in  the  world  than  the  Book  of  Kells.  The  whole 
of  antiquity,  whether  the  Greek,  Roman  or  Etruscan,  has 
bequeathed  to  us  no  lovelier  jewels  than  the  Ardagh 
Chalice  and  the  Tara  Brooch.  And  altho  these  unique 
works  of  art  were  executed  in  Ireland  itself,  they  supply 
ample  evidence  of  the  skill  of  the  Irishmen  who  labored 
abroad  for  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  resurrection  of 
the  peoples  among  whom  they  dwelt  through  the  teaching 
of  Christian  theology  and  the  channels  of  all  the  sciences 
and  all  the  arts. 

Thus  over  a  wide  radius — in  the  regions  now  called 
Great  Britain,  France,  Germany,  Belgium,  Holland, 
Austria  and  Upper  Italy — Irishmen  and  their  disciples 
planted  or  restored  the  root  and  stem  of  Christian  culture, 
drilling  and  training  for  future  work  the  raw  tribes  who 
were  to  make  up  the  great  nations  of  the  modern  world. 
So  Ireland  fulfilled  her  mission  in  life,  which  the  bene- 
ficiaries were  to  forget,  but  which  in  the  sight  of  heaven 
was  to  be  her  crowning  glory.  "Ireland  can  indeed  lay 
claim  to  a  great  past,"  says  the  writer  already  quoted. 
"She  can  not  only  boast  of  having  been  the  birthplace  and 
abode  of  high  culture  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries, 
at  a  time  when  the  Roman  Empire  was  being  undermined 
by  the  alliances  and  inroads  of  the  German  tribes  which 
threatened  to  sink  the  whole  Continent  into  barbarism,  but 
also  of  having  made  strenuous  efiforts  in  the  seventh  and 
up  to  the  tenth  century  to  spread  her  learning  among  the 
German  and  Romance  peoples,  thus  forming  the  actual 
foundations  of  our  present  continental  civilization."* 

iZimmer,  Preussiche  Jahrbiicher,  Jan.,  1887,  translated  into  English  as  "The 
Irish  Element  in  Medieval  Culture,"  p.  3. 

12 


CHAPTER  II 
LINEAMENTS  IN  THE  CONSPECTUS 

I.  Founders  of  Churches  and  Cities.  2.  From  Iceland  to  the  Pyramids. 
3.  Incomparably  Skilled  in  Human  Learning.'  4.  The  Carolingian 
Renaissance. 

I.  Founders  of  Churches  and  Cities 

THE  men  that  Ireland  sent  forth  therefore  were  more 
than  intellectuals  and  devotees.  Had  they  been 
merely  such  they  could  not  have  got  very  far. 
They  were  indefatigable  all-round  workers — engineers, 
architects,  painters,  penmen,  woodcarvers  and  farmers,  as 
well  as  the  most  accomplished  schoolmen  of  their  age. 
Deeply  learned  and  highly  bred,  some  of  them  the  sons 
of  kings,  and,  like  Columcille,  eligible  to  the  high  throne 
of  Ireland  itself,  giving  their  wealth  as  well  as  their  work, 
they  regarded  no  form  of  labor  as  too  lowly  or  arduous 
that  helped  in  the  compassing  of  the  ends  they  had  in 
view.  A  versatility  in  cases  verging  on  the  miraculous, 
a  faith  and  enthusiasm  that  removed  mountains,  and  a 
courage  lionlike  in  its  intrepidity,  would  seem  to  have 
been  the  elements  necessary  for  the  accomplishment  of 
the  deeds  recorded  of  them.  Here  and  there  all  over 
Europe,  on  high  tablelands  or  by  the  side  of  rivers,  or  in 
the  midst  of  a  desert  waste,  there  rise  to-day  fair  cities 
boasting  large  populations  and  all  the  refinements  of 
civilization.  How  came  these  cities  there?  Often  be- 
cause one  of  these  Irish  peregrini,  trusting  only  God 
and  his  own  arm  and  brain,  struck  out  on  a  fateful  and 
distant  day  into  the  trackless  forest  or  across  some  wilder- 

13 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

ness  and  there  in  the  heart  of  it  drove  his  staff  into  the 
ground  and  made  it  his  home  ''for  the  love  of  the  kingdom 
of  the  Lord." 

First  came  the  hermitage,  and  then  the  oratorio,  then 
the  monastery,  and  church,  and  school,  a  modified 
rath  or  lis  or  caiseal  or  caithir,  after  the  Irish  fashion, 
v^^ith  people  flocking  from  all  parts  to  hear  the  wisdom- 
laden  voice  of  the  stranger.  So  a  center  of  culture,  of 
industry,  and  of  commerce  was  set  up,  and  roads  were 
laid,  and  bridges  built,  and  wells  dug,  and  gardens 
planted,  and  clearances  made  in  the  woods,  and  herds  of 
goats  and  cows  and  sheep  and  poultry  were  made  to 
take  the  place  of  the  wild  animals  that  had  greeted  the 
stranger  on  his  coming.  And  over  all  till  death  took  him 
presided  the  stranger  from  far  Scotia  and  a  number  of 
his  countrymen  who  had  in  course  of  time  come  to  him, 
dignified  men  with  long  flowing  locks  and  painted  eye- 
lids* and  a  serenity  that  nothing  could  ruffle,  men  who 
among  themselves  talked  a  strange  tongue,  not  Latin 
though  it  resembled  it,  which  the  natives  could  not 
understand,  but  who  talked  to  the  natives  in  their  own 
speech  and  seemed  to  them  to  be  in  possession  of  all 
knowledge  and  to  be  capable  of  accomplishing  all  things. 
And  then  at  last  when  the  stranger  died  and  the  people 
he  had  brought  together  began  to  credit  their  gain  and 
count  their  loss,  an  unspeakable  sorrow  would  fall  upon 
them,  and  the  lamentation  would  carry  his  fame  to  all 
parts.  And  a  great  cathedral  would  be  built  and  his 
blessed  bones  placed  therein,  and  crowds  would  come  to 
venerate  his  memory.    And  so  a  new  city  would  be  born 

lA  striking  peculiarity  of  the  Irish  peregrini  was  their  painted  eyelids, 
but  they  also  colored  or  tattooed  other  parts  of  their  bodies.  They  were  ton- 
sured in  front  from  ear  to  ear  and  their  garments  were  of  white  homespun. 
They  carried  staffs,  leathern  wallets,  flasks  and  books.  Pilgrims  traveled 
usually  on  foot,  but  Irish  travelers  of  rank,  mingling'  pleasure  with  piety, 
traveled  on  horseback  and  with  retinue,  as  in  the  case  of  Marcus  and  Moengal, 
described  in  the  chronicle  of  St.  Gall. 

14 


Lineaments   in   tlie   Conspectus 


to  the  world  and  the  seed  planted  by  the  stranger  would 
fructify  for  ever  more.  Thus  St.  Gall,  whose  father  and 
patron  was  Ceallach  or  Gallus,  thus  Lure,  whose  founder 
was  Dicuil,  thus  Bobbio,  whose  founder  was  Columbanus, 
thus  Perrone,  whose  father  and  patron  was  Fursa,  grew 
into  mountain  villages  or  noble  cities.  Thus  scores  of 
cities  and  towns  from  the  Irish  Sea  to  the  Adriatic — 
St.  Bees,  Malmesbury,  St.  Gibrian,  St.  Gobain,  St.  Die, 
St.  Ursanne,  Dissentis,  San  Columbano,  San  Cataldo, 
Altomunster,  St.  Desibod  and  Beatenberg,  among  them^ 
came  into  being  under  the  fostering  arm  of  the  missionary 
Gael. 

A  sacred  fanaticism  carried  these  tireless  Irish  pilgrims 
over  the  broad  expanse  of  Europe,  their  tracks  studded 
with  hermit  haunts  and  holy  wells,  round  which  rose  up 
in  the  fulness  of  time  noble  monasteries  and  enduring 
cities.  When  the  fiery  Columbanus  was  expelled  from 
Luxeuil,  where  on  the  buried  heaps  of  a  Roman  city  he 
had  founded  a  lasting  school  and  city,  he  wended  his  slow 
and  tortuous  way  to  northern  Italy,  and  as  he  proceeded, 
parted  one  by  one  with  compatriots  who  were  disciples 
precious  to  him  as  life.  Dicuil's  failing  limbs  gave  way 
as  he  accompanied  the  evicted  superior  to  Besangon,  and 
with  his  master^s  blessing  he  settled  in  a  desert  waste  to 
lay  the  foundation  of  the  noble  monastery  of  Lure. 
Potentin  was  left  behind  at  Soissons  to  become  Abbot 
eventually  of  Coutances.  Ursicinus^  bade  his  superior  a 
fond  farewell  at  Basel  and,  penetrating  into  the  passes 
of  Jura,  founded  his  great  monastery  at  the  foot  of  Mont 

1  The  names  of  Irishmen  abroad  assumed  a  Latin  form  in  the  mouths  of 
continental  writers.  Colum  became  Columbanus ;  Cathail,  Cataldus ;  Siadhail, 
Sedulius;  Ceallach,  Gallus;  Moengal,  Marcellus;  Muiredach,  Marianus;  Duncadh, 
Donatus ;  and  so  on.  A  new  sobriquet  was  given  In  some  cases.  Thu.s  Comgall, 
founder  of  Bangor,  figures  as  Faustus  in  one  of  the  directions  of  Columbanus. 
Other  forms  were  art)itrary,  Ailill  becoming  Elias.  "Scotus"  meaning'  "Irish- 
man," was  a  common  appellation. 

15 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

Terrible.  Ceallach,  or  Gallus,  stricken  with  fever,  aban- 
doned the  fateful  journey  at  Bregenz  to  found,  soon  after, 
the  peerless  monastery  of  St.  Gall.  Sigisbert  turned  aside 
at  Coire  to  lay  in  a  place  of  horror  and  vast  wilderness 
the  foundation  of  the  Abbey  of  Dissentis.  Fridoald,  one 
of  the  last  surviving  companions  of  Columbanus,  led  a 
colony  of  monks  into  the  wild  Munsterthal  and  founded 
the  monastery  of  Granfelden,  united  later  with  the  her- 
mitage at  St.  Ursanne  and  the  monastery  of  Pfermund. 

The  disciples  of  Fursa  and  their  contemporaries  re- 
peated the  marvels  achieved  by  Columbanus  and  his  asso- 
ciates. Their  toil  and  agony  and  martyr  blood  hallowed 
the  soil  that  has  resounded  in  these  days  to  the  thunders 
of  the  most  brutal  war  in  history.  Wherever  Fursa  moved 
the  people  kissed  his  footsteps;  at  his  death  kings  and 
princes  vied  for  his  remains.  Treasure  untold  accumu- 
lated around  his  shrine  at  Peronne,  where  after  his  death 
a  monastery  for  Irishmen  was  established,  to  be  pillaged 
after  the  lapse  of  centuries  by  the  marauding  Northmen, 
as  the  centers  founded  by  and  named  after  St.  Gobain, 
St.  Gibrian,  and  many  another  Irish  saint  were  overrun 
and  plundered  during  the  Calvinist  wars  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  The  monks  who  preceded  Fursa  labored  along 
the  Authie,  Somme,  Seine,  Oise,  Marne,  Aisne,  and 
Meuse — names  all  familiar  to  students  of  the  great  war; 
those  who  accompanied  him  cooperated  in  carrying  the 
good  work  into  Belgium  and  beyond  it.  Eata,  Mael- 
ceadar,  Amand,  Bertuin  and  others  preached  the  gospel 
in  the  Low  Countries.  Livinus  labored  at  Ghent,  through- 
out Flanders  and  Brabant  indeed.  Rumold  became  first 
bishop  and  apostle  of  historic  Mechlin.  Ultan  governed 
monasteries  at  Mont  St.  Quentin  and  between  the  Meuse 
and  Sambre  in  the  region  of  Maestriche.    Wiro  founded 

i6 


Lineaments  in  the  Conspectus 

St.  Peter's  monastery,  also  in  the  territory  of  Liege. 
Fingen  established  the  monastery  of  St.  Vannes  at  Ver- 
dun ;  Abbot  Maolcalain  was  the  first  bishop  of  St.  Michael 
in  Thierache.  Others  found  their  way  much  farther 
afield,  notable  among  them  Fridolin  the  Traveller,  Kil- 
lian,  patron  of  Wurzburg,  and  Marianus  Scotus,  who 
labored  at  Paderborn,  Fulda,  Metz  and  elsewhere.  In  the 
tenth  century  learning  flourished  in  the  region  of  the 
Meuse  and  Moselle,  at  Toul  and  Verdun,  which  were  oc- 
cupied by  colonies  of  monks  from  Greece  and  Ireland. 

2.   From  Iceland  to  the  Pyramids 

Colman,  patron  of  Lower  Austria,  had  the  experience 
of  being  seized  as  a  Moravian  spy  during  the  war  be- 
tween the  Moravians  and  the  Austrians  early  in  the  elev- 
enth century.  Towards  its  close  John,  another  Irish 
missionary,  converted  multitudes  in  Sclavonia,  between 
the  Elbe  and  the  Vistula,  and  finally  was  beheaded  at 
Rethre.  St.  Tressan  and  his  companions  announced  the 
Gospel  at  Rheims  and  along  the  district  of  Chalons-sur- 
Marne.  A  host  of  others  penetrating  to  the  North  made 
the  mountains  and  forests  of  Germany  and  Scandinavia 
resound  with  the  glad  tidings  of  redemption.  From  Egypt 
in  the  East  to  Iceland  in  the  North,  hardly  an  acre  can  be 
found  which  has  not  been  consecrated  by  the  ceaseless 
strivings,  the  sweat  and  the  blood  of  the  men  of  Ireland. 
Little  wonder  that  it  seemed  as  tho  in  Green's  words, 
"Celtic,  and  not  Latin,  Christianity  was  to  mold  the 
destinies  of  the  Churches  of  the  West." 

Dicuil,  early  in  the  ninth  century,  tells  of  an  Irishman, 
Fidelis,  who  measured  the  Pyramids  and  "went  thence 
by  the  canal  to  the  Red  Sea."  Far  earlier  another,  Pel- 
legrinus,  penetrated  to  the  Holy  Land,  fasted  forty  days 

17 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of   Britain 

in  the  desert,  returned  through  Egypt,  whence  he  sailed 
for  Italy,  landing  at  Ancona,  to  spend  the  rest  of  his  life 
near  the  mountain  called  after  him.  In  634  a  deputation 
of  scholarly  Irishmen,  sent  by  the  Irish  government, 
lodged  in  a  hospice  in  Rome  with  a  Greek  and  a  Hebrew, 
an  Egyptian  and  a  Scythian,  who  told  them  the  whole 
world  celebrated  the  Roman  and  not  the  Irish  Easter. 
In  Constantinople  in  the  ninth  century  Irish  monks  told 
the  Greeks  that  every  Irish  monastery  possest  a  Chrysostom. 
Cathaldus  of  Lismore,  returning  from  the  Holy  Land, 
was  shipwrecked  at  Taranto,  of  which,  in  recognition  of 
his  labors,  he  became  bishop,  patron  and  second  apostle. 
Findan  of  Rheinau  escaped  from  the  Norse  pirates  of  the 
Orkneys  before  settling  in  Switzerland.  Pilgrims  settled 
in  the  Faroe  Islands  and  in  Iceland,  where,  in  the  year 
860,  the  Norwegians  found  Irish  books,  bells  and  croziers, 
left  there  by  men  who  profest  the  Christian  religion.  In 
659  the  Irish  Angus  or  Augustin  wrote,  apparently  in 
Carthage,  to  the  bishops  of  which  he  dedicated  his  work, 
perhaps  the  most  original  theological  treatise  of  the  early 
Middle  Ages. 

Note  the  practical  industry  of  these  Irish  missionaries 
and  their  disciples.  "To  their  untiring  industry  is  it  due 
that  half  of  France  and  of  ungrateful  Europe  has  been 
restored  to  cultivation,"  is  the  testimony  of  Montalembert 
in  respect  to  the  monks  in  general,  but  it  applies  to  the 
Irish  monks  and  their  disciples  in  particular.  Ursicinus, 
expelled  with  Columbanus  from  Luxeuil,  attached  to  his 
own  monastery  at  St.  Ursanne  subsequently  a  hospital 
for  the  sick  poor,  with  baggage  cattle  to  help  travelers 
over  the  Alps.  Wandresgisel,  disciple  of  Columbanus 
and  founder  of  the  monastery  of  Fontenelles,  is  reputed 
to  have  planted  the  first  vineyard  in  Normandy.     St. 

18 


Lineaments  in  the  Conspectus 

Eata,  patron  saint  of  cowherds,  is  represented  in  art  as 
surrounded  by  calves  and  oxen.  St.  Fiachra  or  Fiacre  is 
the  patron  of  the  cab-drivers  of  Paris,  to  support  the 
poor  of  which  he  is  said  to  have  turned  the  wilderness 
of  Meaux  into  a  garden.  St.  Eloi,  disciple  alike  of 
Columbanus  and  Fursa,  is  patron  of  farriers  and  silver- 
smiths, as  Dunstan,  educated  by  Irish  instructors  and 
craftsmen,  is  the  patron  saint  of  goldsmiths.  Frigidian,  hon- 
ored in  Italy  as  San  FreHiano,  engineered  canals  in  the 
plains  of  Eucca.  RuHpert,  another  Irishman  whose  fig- 
ure is  portraye'd  on  the  coins  of  Carinthia,  started  the  salt 
mining  that  made  Salzburg  famous,  and  gave  it  its  name. 
Magnoald,  apostle  of  Suabia,  is  reputed  to  have  discov- 
ered the  mountain  iron  of  Suilinic  and  taught  the  people 
how  to  work  it. 

AnHrew  of  Fiesole,  the  HrotHer  of  Donagh  or  Donatus 
of  Fiesole,  who  Had  the  reputation  of  working  after  the 
manner  of  a  reasoning  bee,  helped  with  his  own  hands 
to  build  there  a  church  of  stone  and  mortar.  As  a  result 
of  pilgrimages  to  the  shrine  of  Andrew's  sister,  B  rigid, 
the  surrounding  wastes  were  reclaimed,  the  forests  cleared, 
and  the  fields  planted.  Nor  was  B rigid  herein  peculiar. 
Gregory  the  Great  Has  reference  to  Maura  and  Britta, 
two  virgins,  obviously  Irish,  who  were  buried  at  Tours, 
where  they  had  come  as  pilgrims  to  the  shrine  of  St. 
Martin.  Remi,  father  of  pilgrims,  provided  suitable  re- 
treats on  the  banks  of  the  Marne  for  the  three  sisters  of 
Gibrian,  on  pilgrimage  too  from  Ireland,  "for  the  love  of 
Christ." 

"They  did  not,"  says  the  biographer  of  Remi,  "live  only 
on  the  charity  of  those  to  whom  pious  Remi  had  com- 
men'ded  them,  but  also  on  their  own  industry  and  the 
labor  of  their  hands,  in  accordance  with  the  custom  of 

19 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

the  religious  bodies  in  Ireland.  This  life,  united  to  won- 
derful holiness  and  constant  prayer,  won  for  them  a  great 
love  among  the  natives  of  the  country."  Dymphna,  as 
the  reward  of  her  industry,  became  the  patron  saint  not 
only  of  the  insane  but  also  of  Brabant.  St.  Begha  or 
Bee,  who  first  crossed  from  Ireland  to  St.  Bee's  Head, 
called  after  her,  assisted  with  her  own  hands  in  erecting 
at  Hartlepool  the  mother  convent  of  England,  as  her 
countryman  and  spiritual  director,  Aidan,  erected  at 
Lindisfarne  the  mother  church  of  Northumbria.  At 
Lindisfarne  the  English  were  taught  writing  and  the  let- 
ters used  among  them  till  the  Norman  conquest.  From 
Bangor  and  from  among  the  Irish  in  Wales  Alfred  secured 
professors  when  he  sought  to  set  up  schools  in  England. 

3.  Incomparably  Skilled  in  Human  Learning 

To  the  time  of  the  Conqueror  England  existed  simply 
as  an  intellectual  dependency  of  Ireland.  It  was  Irish- 
men like  Aidan,  Finan,  Colman,  Maeldubh,  and  Fursa 
who  introduced  the  machinery  of  Christian  civilization 
into  the  land  which  Roman  missionaries  had  trod  with 
fear  and  trembling.  When  the  Danes  destroyed  the  evi- 
dences of  progress  in  England  it  was  Irishmen  again, 
themselves  harassed  by  these  same  freebooters,  who  re- 
paired the  ravages.  Almost  every  scholar  of  note  in  the 
Anglo-Saxon  era  was  trained  either  in  Ireland  or  by 
Irishmen  in  England.  There  was  hardly  a  school  in 
England,  outside  that  at  Canterbury — tho  here  Irish- 
men were  prominent  also  in  Theodore's  time — that  was 
not  established  and  conducted  by  Irishmen  or  by  men 
who  were  Irish-taught.  What  is  now  called  Scotland 
they  simply  made  their  own.  The  inauguration  there  by 
Columcille  of  Aidan  is  the  earliest  recorded  instance  of  a 

20 


Lineaments  in  the  Conspectus 


royal  coronation  in  Great  Britain,  where  the  Irish  cere- 
monies came  into  universal  use.  "The  Irish,"  says  Col- 
lins, "colonized  Scotland,  gave  it  a  name,  a  literature  and 
a  language,  gave  it  a  hundred  kings,  and  gave  it  Chris- 
tianity." 

Aidan  familiarized  the  English  of  the  north  v^rith  the 
solemn  melody  of  the  Roman  chant,  and  music  and  as- 
tronomy were  among  the  subjects  taught  by  the  Irish 
monks  at  Glastonbury.    Foillan  and  Ultan,  on  crossing 
from  Bamborough  to  Flanders,  v^ere  asked  by  Gertrude 
of  Nivelles  to  instruct  her  nuns  in  psalmody,  while  the 
music  school  of  St.  Gall,  under  Moengal,  was  "the  won- 
der and  the  delight  of  Europe."    St.  Gall  itself  became 
known  as  "the  intellectual  center  of  the  German  world," 
as  Bobbio,  founded  by  Columbanus,  was  long  "the  light 
of  northern  Italy."     Baoithin,  successor  of  Columcille 
at  lona,  "had  no  equal  this  side  of  the  Alps  in  his  knowl- 
edge of  sacred  scripture  and  the  profundity  of  his  sci- 
ence."   Adamnan,  abbot  also  of  lona,  and  "high  scholar 
of  the  western  world,"  has  left  us  in  his  exquisite  life  of 
Columcille  "one  of  the  most  important  pieces  of  hagiology 
in  existence" — moreover  "the  most  complete  piece  of 
biography  that  all  Europe  can  boast  of,  not  only  at  so  early 
a  period,  but  even  through  the  whole  Middle  Ages,"  in 
the  opinion  of  Pinkerton.* 

Fursa's  marvelous  visions,  says  Ozanam,  inspired 
Dante.  Johannes  Scotus  Eriugena  ranked  with  Dante, 
Chrysostom  and  Albertus  Magnus ;  no  more  puissant  or 
original  thinker  appeared  in  the  long  tract  between  Au- 
gustine and  Aquinas.  Clemens  and  "Albinus"  were  "in- 
comparably skilled  in  human  learning  and  in  the 
Scriptures."    Tutilo  or  Tuthail  of  St.  Gall  was  at  once 


1  Enquiry,  Pref.  vol.  1,  p.  xMli   (Edinb.,  1814). 

21 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

musician,  orator,  poet,  painter,  sculptor,  builder,  gold- 
smith; Dungal,  theologian,  controversialist,  poet,  as- 
tronomer; Virgilius  of  Salzburg,  prince  of  astronomers, 
"most  learned  among  the  learned."  Nor  was  Dicuil  the 
only  great  Irish  geographer.  Duncan  or  Dunchad,  an 
Irish  bishop,  teaching  in  the  monastery  of  Remi  at 
Rheims,  where  he  died  about  the  close  of  the  tenth  cen- 
tury, wrote  for  the  use  of  his  students  "Explanatory  Obser- 
vations on  the  First  Book  of  Pomponius  Mela  regarding 
the  situation  of  the  earth,"  as  well  as  a  "Commentary  on  the 
Nine  Books  of  Martianus  Capella  on  the  Liberal  Arts."* 
For  these  reasons  "it  was  that  Fingen  and  Duncan  and 
other  Irishmen  h!ad  been  so  (peculiarly  patronized  at 
Rheims,  Metz,  Verdun,  and  along  the  territories  of  France 
and  Germany.  Learning  had  been  revived  by  Irish- 
men in  the  imperial  city  of  Cologne;  they  taught  the 
classics  and  the  sciences  in  the  extensive  diocese  of  Toul; 
they  established  schools  along  the  Rhine,  in  the  Nether- 
lands, Switzerland,  and  the  northern  districts  of  Italy; 
in  short,  the  Irish  ecclesiastics  of  the  tenth  and  preceding 
centuries  were  the  persons  by  whose  means  the  reign  of 
literature  had  been  established  in  many  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished cities  and  provinces  of  Europe."^  Every 
province  in  Germany  proclaims  the  Irish  as  its  benefac- 
tors, says  a  German  author.  "The  Saxons  and  the  tribes 
of  northern  Germany  are  indebted  to  them  to  an  extent 
which  may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that  the  first  ten 
bishops  who  occupied  the  see  of  Verden  belonged  to  that 
(Irish)  race." 

Noteworthy  was  the  modesty  of  these  Irish  pioneers. 
Columbanus,  friend  of  Agilulf,  king  of  the  Lombards, 

1  The  MS.   (Lat.  4854)   is  in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale,  Paris.     Se©  Hist. 
Lit.  de  la  France,  I,  549-50. 

•Brenan,  Eccl.  Hist,  of  Ireland,  p.  199. 

22 


Lineaments  in  the  Conspectus 

and  of  Chlothair,  king  of  Neustria,  declined  late  in  life 
the  recall  to  his  well  loved  Luxeuil.  Gallus  similarly- 
declined  the  preferred  government  of  Luxeuil  and  the 
bishopric  of  Constance.  Virgilius,  tho  appointed  bishop 
of  Salzburg  by  Pope  Stephen  II  and  King  Pepin,  de- 
ferred his  consecration  for  two  years.  Donatus  hesitated 
to  accept  the  see  of  Fiesole.  Dungal,  high  in  the  esteem 
of  Charlemagne,  specially  desired  that  he  might  occupy 
no  higher  station  in  the  church  than  simple  deacon.  Ultan 
is  represented  with  a  crown  at  his  feet  to  signify  his 
contempt  for  the  things  of  the  earth. 

Not  less  striking  were  the  mortifications  they  involun- 
tarily endured.  Columcille,  a  scion  of  the  royal  Hy  Nial, 
lived  on  bread  and  water  and  vegetables,  as  often  as  not 
on  common  nettles;  he  slept  on  the  bare  sand  with  a 
stone  for  pillow,  his  pallet  betimes  the  naked  rock. 
Adamnan  lived  at  Coludi  on  two  meals  a  week  and  fre- 
quently passed  the  whole  night  in  vigil.  Columbanus, 
unwitting  rival  of  St.  Benedict,  subsisted  for  three  weeks 
on  grass  and  bilberries  and  the  bark  of  trees.  His  fol- 
lowers and  successors,  tho  in  many  instances  of  princely 
birth  and  upbringing,  were  scarcely  less  given  to  frugal 
fare.  Not  St.  Gall  and  Lure  alone  had  princes  for  ab- 
bots: Waldebert,  Count  of  Meaux  and  Ponthieu,  ruled 
Luxeuil  with  unparalleled  success  for  forty  years.  De- 
spite their  self-denial,  the  complaint  was  made  at  an 
early  stage  that  the  monks  of  Luxeuil  by  their  clearances 
and  cultivation  were  destroying  the  chase  in  the  surround- 
ing woods.* 

lAs  the  purpose  here  is  to  give  a  preliminary  bird's-eye  view  numerous 
footnotes  have  been  avoided.    These  where  useful  will  come  later. 


23 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

4.  The  Carolingian  Renaissance 

The  number  of  scholars  which  Ireland  gave  to  the 
empire  of  Charlemagne  amazed  Eric  of  Auxerre/  From 
the  beginning  of  the  Carolingian  renaissance  they  were 
the  leaders  in  every  intellectual  activity.  "Altho  it  was 
Italy  that  inspired  Charles  with  the  idea  of  founding 
schools  throughout  the  empire,  it  was  Ireland  that  sent 
him  the  masters  who  were  to  impart  the  new  learning. 
.  .  .  .  Alcuin,  altho  an  Englishman,  is  justly  considered 
a  representative  of  Irish  learning;  with  him  is  associated 
Clement  of  Ireland,  who  assisted  in  the  work  of  founding 
the  Palace  school.  Unfortunately  history  has  not  pre- 
served the  names  of  Clement's  fellow  countrymen  who, 
during  the  reign  of  Charles  and  throughout  the  ninth 
century,  were  found  in  every  cathedral  and  monastery  of 
the  empire  as  well  as  at  the  court  of  the  Frankish  kings, 
and  were  so  identified  with  the  new  intellectual  move- 
ment that  the  teaching  of  the  newly  founded  schools  was 
characterized  as  Irish  learning."^ 

There  is  nothing  in  the  whole  history  of  literature  more 
extraordinary  than  Irish  knowledge  of  Greek  during  this 
period  when  all  knowledge  of  it  had  apparently  died  out 
among  others  in  western  Europe.  The  fact  that  the  em- 
perors in  the  West  had  to  turn  to  Irishmen  for  the  eluci- 
dation of  manuscripts  that  no  Greek  knew  Latin  enough 
and  no  Latin  knew  Greek  enough  to  interpret  is  a  mys- 
tery as  astonishing  and  difficult  to  solve  in  our  day  as  it 
appeared  to  Anastasius,^  the  Roman  librarian,  in  his  day. 
From  Pelagius  and  Columbanus  through  Johannes  Sco- 
tus  Eriugena  to  Michael  the  Irishman  (Scotus)  we  are 
confronted  by  the  evidences  of  this  baffling  Hellenic  pre- 

1  Vita  S.   Germani,   praef. 

2  Turner,  History  of  Philosophy,  pp.  241-2. 

3  Migne,  Patrologia  Latina,  cxxii,   93. 

24 


Lineaments  in  the  Conspectus 

eminence,  an  incommunicable  illumination  invisible  as 
to  its  source  and  tributaries.  In  the  fifth  century  Pela- 
gius  won  an  easy  triumph  over  Orosius,  the  representative 
of  St.  Augustine,  by  his  knowledge  of  Greek.  Thomas 
Aquinas  in  the  thirteenth  century  knew  no  Greek.  Yet 
Eriugena  in  the  ninth  century  not  only  translated  from 
Greek  into  Latin  and  from  Latin  into  Greek  but  wrote 
Greek  poetry,  and  Michael  Scotus,  a  contemporary  of 
Aquinas,  was  among  the  first  to  acquaint  Europe  with 
the  larger  philosophy  of  Aristotle  by  translating  his 
works  from  the  Arabic.  When  in  the  same  age  Fred- 
erick II,  who,  like  Charlemagne,  loved  to  surround  him- 
self with  Irishmen,  decided  on  setting  up  the  University 
of  Naples,  he  invited  Peter  the  Irishman  to  be  its  first 
rector,  as  another  Irishman  a  little  later  became  chan- 
cellor at  Oxford.  Among  the  students  who  listened  to 
Peter  was  the  Angelic  Doctor  himself. 

I  have  fixed  the  telescope  so  as  to  bring  into  relief 
some  of  the  lineaments  in  the  conspectus.  A  sum- 
ming-up and  condensation  is  provided  by  an  eager  stu- 
dent of  Irish  medieval  work  abroad: 

"By  the  armies  of  monastic  missionaries  and  next  by 
learned  teachers  first  attracting  pupils  to  Irish  schools 
from  all  Christian  Europe  north  of  the  Alps  and  the 
Pyrenees,  and  next  by  sending  forth  men  to  become  the 
founders  of  schools  or  monasteries  or  churches  abroad — 
the  churches  of  St.  Patrick  and  St.  Columba  stand  out 
from  the  sixth  century  forward  as  the  most  energetic 
centers  of  religious  life  and  knowledge  in  Europe;  the 
main  restorers  of  Christianity  in  paganized  England  and 
Roman  Germany;  the  reformers  and  main  founders  of 
monastic  life  in  northern  France;  the  opponents  of  Arian- 
ism  even  in  Italy  itself;  originators  in  the  West  of  the 

25 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of   Britain 

well-meant,  however  mistaken,  system  of  the  Penitentials; 
the  leading  preservers  in  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries 
of  theological  and  classic  culture,  Greek  as  well  as  Latin; 
the  scribes,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  of  many  a  Bible 
text;  the  teachers  of  psalmody;  the  schoolmasters  of  the 
great  monastic  schools;  the  parents,  in  great  part,  as 
well  as  the  forerunners  of  Anglo-Saxon  learning  and  mis- 
sionary zeal ;  the  senders-forth  of  not  the  least  bright  stars 
among  the  galaxy  of  talent  gathered  by  Charlemagne  from 
all  quarters  to  instruct  his  degenerate  Franks — down  to 
the  very  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries."^ 

We  can  measure  the  strength  and  richness  of  the  old 
Irish  civilization  and  the  valor  and  energy  of  its  deposi- 
taries by  comparing  the  work  performed  by  it  and  them 
with  the  contemporary  work  of  other  peoples  similarly 
situated.  The  Church  of  Britain  and  Wales,  for  example, 
which  is  usually  represented  as  a  sister  Celtic  Church, 
the  co-partner  of  the  Church  of  Ireland  in  culture  and 
zeal,  did  not  produce  a  single  missionary  or  schoolman 
who  gained  eminence  abroad,  and  has  not  bequeathed  to 
us  even  a  single  copy  of  the  Scriptures.  The  dictum 
"The  Roman  sowed;  the  Irishman  (Scotus)  watered; 
the  Briton  did  nothing"  has  a  wider  application  than  to 
the  conversion  of  the  English. 

iHaxJdan,    (Scots  on  the  Continent),  Remains   258-94    (Oxford,   1876). 


26 


CHAPTER  III 

BRIDGING  THE  OLD  WORLD  AND  THE  NEW 

I.  Ark  of  Safety  for  the  Old  Wisdom.  2.  Ireland's  Educational  Pro- 
ficiency. 3.  Centers  of  Intellectual  Activity.  4.  Text-books  and 
Learned  Degrees. 

I.  Ark  of  Safety  for  the  Old  Wisdom 

OUR  modern  civilization  has  so  clearly  the  im- 
prints of  Greece  and  Rome  upon  it  that  the  stu- 
dent usually  fails  to  realize  the  immense  vicissi- 
tudes through  which  it  has  passed  in  its  duration  to  our 
day.  The  fabric  of  the  old  world  of  antiquity  to  which 
Caesar  more  than  any  other  had  given  name  and  form 
was  never  more  securely  established  than  during  the  two 
centuries  which  followed  his  death.  A  long  period  of 
peace  prevailed  over  the  vast  empire,  and  a  knowledge  of 
the  liberal  arts  spread  into  the  remotest  provinces.  From 
Rome  as  a  center  Christianity  as  well  as  letters  went  forth, 
the  former  spreading  in  the  face  of  persecution  till  Con- 
stantine  in  312  A.  D.  put  the  seal  of  legality  upon  it. 
But  already  the  structure  of  Roman  civilization,  built  up 
on  foundations  laid  down  by  Assyrian,  Persian,  Greek 
and  Celtic  conquests,  was  shaking  under  the  blows  dealt 
upon  it  from  the  north.  Till  the  termination  of  the  reign 
of  the  Antonines,  for  a  century  and  a  half,  the  period  of 
peace  and  prosperity  continued.  Then  came  a  century 
that  was  full  of  menace  and  trouble  but  in  which  no 
vital  injury  was  inflicted  on  the  body  politic.  And  then 
at  last  in  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century  Rome  began 
to  crumble.     Barbarians  and  pestilence  were  delivering 

27 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

the  annihilating  blows.  The  Franks  overran  Gaul  and 
descended  into  Spain,  and  the  Goths  poured  into  the 
east  and  into  Asia  Minor.  Over  the  ruin  which  the 
Franks  left  behind  them  in  Gaul  and  Spain  the  Vandals 
followed,  nullifying  the  efforts  at  revival.  In  Asia  the 
Huns  poured  over  Cappadocia,  Cilicia  and  Palestine, 
while  Saracens  passed  through  Egypt  over  north  Africa 
into  Spain.  Britain  was  overrun  by  northern  savages 
like  the  Saxons,  Angles  and  Jutes,  and  Austria  by  Asiatic 
nomads  like  the  Huns  and  Magyars.  Then  Goth  fol- 
lowed Goth  in  Europe  and  German  and  Frank  completed 
the  work  of  destruction,  in  which  earthquake,  flood,  fire 
and  plague  cooperated.  In  407  A.  D.  a  multitude  of 
Franks  and  Vandals  burst  over  Gaul.  Roman  rule  prac- 
tically ceased  and  the  three  kingdoms  of  the  Visigoths, 
Burgundians  and  Franks  began  to  form.  In  476  Odoacer 
deposed  the  last  Roman  emperor  in  Italy  and  in  486  Cle- 
vis the  Frank  ended  the  last  vestige  of  Roman  rule  in 
Gaul.  Then  as  if  some  inscrutable  design  sought,  by  a 
huge  phenomenon,  to  leave  no  doubt  that  the  world  of 
the  Caesars  had  gone  forever,  there  followed  the  plague  of 
542.  It  raged  for  four  months  in  Constantinople  and 
for  four  years  in  the  Roman  Empire.  "When  the  plague 
has  ceased,  we  feel  that  we  are  moving  in  a  completely 
other  world  than  that  of  540."* 

At  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  Ireland  did  not  share 
in  the  ruin  of  its  civilization.  That  ruin  was  almost  as 
complete  as  if  the  ocean  had  burst  its  banks  and  washed 
over  the  plains  of  Europe.  Now  Ireland  had  shared  in 
the  commerce,  the  learning  and  the  traditions  of  Rome 
while  Rome  was  still  in  its  strength.  The  Roman  Empire 
fell  swallowed  up  by  tide  after  tide  of  heathen  savages, 

I  Bury's  Later  Roman  Empire,  I,  400. 

28 


Bridging  the  Old  World  and  the  New 

eager  for  destruction  and  plunder.  Outside  the  empire 
Russia  and  Germany,  like  the  Scandinavian  lands,  were 
still  barbarian  and  pagan.  Thus  all  Europe  almost  be- 
came submerged  under  a  deluge  of  savage  heathendom. 
Ireland  was  the  one  exception,  the  ark  of  safety  for  the 
old  beauty  and  wisdom  of  classical  days.  It  was  the 
bridge  over  what  were  truly  the  dark  ages  of  Europe  and 
as  soon  as  the  flood  of  heathen  invasion  ebbed,  light  and 
hope  crossed  the  bridge  and  were  first  carried  by  Irish 
instructors  to  all  the  new-forming  nations  of  Europe,  the 
great  heathen  tribes  destined  to  become  the  nations  of 
the  modern  world. 

While  Europe,  including  Britain,  was  thus  in  tumult, 
peace  and  prosperity  were  brooding  over  favored  Hi- 
bernia.  Hundreds  of  years  yet  separated  her  from  the 
Danish  raids,  and  the  English  were  scarcely  yet  known 
to  civilization.  The  Romans  had  never  succeeded  in 
crossing,  except  for  commerce,  the  waves  that  separated 
her  from  Britain.  The  Milesian  Gaels,  who  had  given 
organization  to  the  country,  had  been  so  long  settled  in 
Ireland  that  the  memory  of  that  settlement  had  assumed 
a  mythological  character.^  The  assumption  is  that  in  the 
midst  of  the  vast  Celtic  movements  that  are  discernible 
over  all  Europe  about  600  B.  C.  there  was  also  a  Celtic 
invasion  of  Ireland.  One  invasion  probably  followed 
another  and  an  Irish  historical  tract,  written  about  721 
A.  D.,  and  copied  from  older  sources,  gives  the  definite 
Gaelic  monarchy  as  beginning  contemporaneously  with 
Alexander  the  Great  in  the  fourth  century  B.  C.^  From 
that  time  onward  one  form  of  government,  a  limited  elec- 

1  "The  Irish  are  one  of  the  most  ancient  nations  that  I  know  of  at  this 
end  of  the  world" ;  and  come  of  "as  m5ghty  a  race  as  the  world  ever  broug-ht 
forth"    (Edmund  Spenser,  "View  of  the  State  of  Ireland,"  1596,  pp.  26  and  82). 

2  "Alexander  had  reigned  five  years  when  the  sons  of  Mil  came  to  Ireland, 
and  the  battle  of  Tailtu  was  fought  in  which  fell  the  T.  D.  D.  (Tuatha  Da 
Danaan)  with  their  queens."  See  MacNeill,  Proc.  Royal  Ir.  Acad.,  1909-10, 
p.  132. 

29 


Ireland  and  die  Making  of  Britain 

tive  monarchy,  and  one  dynasty,  the  Milesian,  ruled  over 
Ireland,  through  a  many-branched  patriarchal  system, 
bound  together  by  one  language,  one  national  literature, 
and  one  code  of  laws. 

The  century  that  saw  the  final  disruption  of  imperial 
Rome  saw  Ireland  growing  greater  and  more  splendid. 
At  that  period  the  martial  might  of  the  Irish  was  at  its 
height;  their  fleets  held  the  northern  seas  and  their  forces 
triumphed  in  the  lands  which  are  now  called  Scotland, 
England,  Wales  and  France.  Their  foreign  trade 
brought  them  captives  from  the  Roman  provinces,  rep- 
resentative of  a  dififerent  culture,  just  as  in  former  times 
the  Greeks  had  been  drawn  to  Rome. 

Greek  and  Roman  learning  was  freely  imported  from 
Marseilles,  Narbonne  and  Bordeaux,  where  Ausonius 
and  his  uncle  and  their  circle  kept  alive  the  ancient  tra- 
ditions, as  well  as  from  northern  Gaul  and  Roman  Britain. 
There  were  Christians  in  Ireland  before  the  advent  of 
St.  Patrick,  and  the  ease  with  which  the  country  turned 
from  paganism  to  Christianity  is  reasonably  explained  by 
its  long  previous  preparation  in  cosmopolitan  culture.  A 
certain  Ethicus  in  the  third  or  fourth  century  tells  us 
how  he  visited  Ireland  and  what  he  thought  of  its  books. 
Ussher  says  that  in  360  A.  D.  a  Christian  priest  was  sent 
from  Rome  to  teach  the  Christian  faith  in  Ireland.  The 
Glossary  of  Cormac,  prince  and  bishop  of  Cashel,  fur- 
nishes strong  testimony  to  the  cultivation  of  letters  and 
learning  before  the  arrival  of  St.  Patrick.  Cormac,  who 
was  a  younger  contemporary  of  Johannes  Scotus  Eriugena 
and  wrote  in  the  ninth  century,  quotes  not  only  Christian 
writers  but  also  many  pagan  Irish  authors — poets,  his- 
torians, grammarians  and  others — who  must  all  have  lived 
previous  to  or  contemporaneously  with  St.  Patrick. 

30 


Bridging  the  Old  World  and  the  New 

In  citing  Ireland  as  the  native  land  of  the  heresiarch 
Pelagius,  St.  Jerome  gave  expression  to  the  foreign  im- 
pression in  respect  to  Ireland's  educational  proficiency  at 
the  end  of  the  fourth  century.  St.  Patrick  in  his  Con- 
fession, composed  in  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century,  apolo- 
gizes for  the  inferiority  of  his  own  to  Irish  culture,  and 
his  description  of  himself  as  a  man  of  single  speech  from 
his  birth  is  indicative  of  antagonists  knowing  more  tongues 
than  one.  The  works  of  the  first  Sedulius  before  450 
A.  D.,  presuming  that  he  was  an  Irishman,  the  poems  of 
Sechnall,  and  the  extant  writings  of  Columbanus,  Colum- 
cille  and  their  contemporaries,  add  to  the  testimony  be- 
fore the  end  of  the  sixth  century. 

A  year  before  the  arrival  of  St.  Patrick,  Pope  Celes- 
tine  is  recorded  as  sending  Palladlus  to  the  "Scots  of  Ire- 
land believing  in  Christ."  But  it  would  appear  that  up 
to  the  time  In  v^hlch  St.  Patrick  began  his  great  work  the 
Christians  of  Ireland  were  in  a  great  minority  and  prac- 
tised their  religion  in  secrecy. 

2.  Ireland's  Educational  Proficiency 

Long  before  the  advent  of  Christianity  the  numerous 
schools  of  the  Druids  and  the  bards  carried  on  the  tradi- 
tion of  pagan  culture  and  taught  history,  poetry,  and  law, 
and  there  were  also  academies  of  a  higher  grade. 
Worth  noting  is  the  reference  in  "Ogygia"  to  a  species  of 
university  established  at  Tara  in  the  third  century  by 
Cormac,  the  high-king,  son  of  AIrt:  "Cormac  exceeded 
all  his  predecessors  In  magnificence,  munificence,  wisdom, 
and  learning,  as  also  in  military  achievements.  His 
palace  was  most  superbly  adorned  and  richly  furnished, 
and  his  numerous  family  proclaim  his  majesty  and  mu- 
nificence; the  books  he  published  and  the  schools  he 

31 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

endowed  at  Tara  bear  unquestionable  testimony  to  his 
learning;  there  were  three  schools  instituted:  In  the  first 
the  most  eminent  professors  of  the  art  of  war  were  en- 
gaged, in  the  second  history  was  taught,  and  in  the  third 
jurisprudence  was  profest."^  There  is  a  long  poem  in 
the  book  of  Ua  Davegan  on  these  colleges,  the  grandeur  of 
Tara  in  the  reign  of  Cormac,  his  encomiums  and  exploits." 

But  the  fame  of  Ireland  as  the  "Island  of  Saints  and 
Scholars"  is  based  mainly  on  the  chain  of  remarkable 
foundations  that  began  to  garland  the  land  following  the 
introduction  of  Christianity.  The  more  important  of 
these  seats  of  learning,  which  in  course  of  time  made  their 
influence  felt  over  the  whole  civilized  world,  were  in  the 
true  sense  of  the  word  universities.  They  made  the 
whole  circle  of  knowledge  the  subject  of  their  inquiry 
and  teaching;  they  drew  their  teachers  and  students  from 
every  part  of  Europe;  and  they  were  the  original  models 
on  which  in  great  measure  modern  universities  have  been 
formed.  Measured  even  by  the  characteristic  distinc- 
tions arbitrarily  enumerated  by  Bulaeus — ratione  dis- 
ciplinae,  ratione  loci,  ratione  fundatorum,  ratione  privi- 
legiorum,  ratione  regimenis — they  fulfilled  the  idea  of 
universities. 

Among  them  Armagh  and  Clonmacnois  in  particular 
possest  a  national,  not  to  speak  of  an  international, 
character.  Leaving  aside  minor  seats  of  learning  with 
which  Ireland  was  at  that  time  honeycombed,  there  were 
in  number  thirty-six  of  these  larger  monastic  establish- 
ments. Armagh,  as  the  seat  of  the  primal  see  of  St.  Pat- 
rick, was  the  greatest  of  them  all,  and  it  became  and  long 

iHely's  Trajisl.  Senchus  na  Relic  (History  of  the  Cemeteries)  in  Leabhar 
na  h-Uidhr«  (Book  of  the  Dun  Cow),  a  MS.  of  the  eleventh  century  founded  on 
others  much  older. 

2  The  poem  begins:  "Teamhair  na  riogh  rath  Cormaic" — (Tara  of  the  kinga 
is  Cormac's  seat" — ). 

32 


Bridging  the  Old  World  and  the  New 

remained  the  most  renowned  seat  of  learning  in  the  world. 
Founded  in  the  fifth  century  it  retained  its  supremacy  in 
the  twelfth.  Thus  the  synod  of  Clane  in  1162  ordered 
that  from  that  time  forth  only  former  students  of  Armagh 
were  to  obtain  the  position  of  "fer  leiginn,"  or  chief  pro- 
fessor, in  a  school  attached  to  any  church  In  Ireland.  This 
decree  was  really  equivalent  to  a  recognition  of  the  school 
of  Armagh  as  a  national  university  for  all  Ireland.  Seven 
years  later  the  king  of  Ireland,  Ruaidhri,  established 
and  endowed  in  Armagh  a  new  professorship  for  the 
benefit  of  students  from  Ireland  and  Scotland. 

After  Armagh  there  followed  Clonard  in  present 
Meath,  ancient  Bregia  and  Teffia,  founded  early  in  the 
sixth  century  by  Finan  or  Finnian;  Clonmacnois,  on  the 
banks  of  the  Shannon  in  the  present  King's  County, 
founded  in  the  same  century  by  Ciaran,  called  the  "Car- 
penter's Son";  Bangor  in  Uladh,  or  Ulidia,  amid  the 
coastal  ards  of  Ulster,  "that  glorious  institution"  as  St. 
Bernard  of  Clairvaux  calls  it,  founded  by  Comgall^  in 
558;  Clonfert,  founded  by  St.  Brendan  the  Navigator; 
Lismore  in  Desies  (now  County  Waterford),  founded  by 
Carthach,  surnamed  Mochuda,  about  the  year  633 ;  and 
Glendalough,  in  present  Wicklow,  part  of  the  ancient 
territory  of  Hy-Kinsellagh. 

Clonard  (Cluain  Erard,  Erard's  meadow),  on  the 
banks  of  the  River  Boyne,  began  as  the  cell  of  Finnian,'* 

1  Columbanus,  founder  of  Luxeuil,  Annegrray,  Fontaines  and  Bobbio,  who 
•was  educated  at  Bangor,  preserves  In  his  second  Instruction  a  fragment  of  the 
writings  of  Comgall  (See  Ulster  Journal  of  Archaeology,  I,  p.  174,  Old  Series, 
Reeves  on  Antiphonary  of  Bangor;  Migne,  LXXX,  229  seq.).  Notker  Balbulus, 
who  flourished  at  the  Irish  foundation  of  St.  Gall  in  890,  identifies  the  name 
of  Faustus,  which  Columbanus  gives  to  his  old  master,  with  the  Irish  name 
Comgall. 

2  "Naimh   (St.)  Finnian  of  Clonard,  the  pious  one. 

And  scholar,  in  whose  school  three  thousand  saints 
Had  studied  wisdom,  ere  they  wandered  forth 

To  build  their  cells  and  churches  throughout  vast  Erin."     (Tain.  Prol., 
Finding  of  the  Tain,  transl.  by  Hutton,  p.  6.) 

33 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of  Britain 

and  later  grew  into  a  cluster  of  stone  buildings,  with 
some  structures  built  of  enduring  woods.  The  fame  of  its 
learning  brought  to  it  multitudes  of  scholars,  including 
laymen,  clerics,  abbots  and  bishops.  From  it  went  forth 
the  group  of  remarkable  men  known  as  the  "Twelve 
Apostles  of  Erin."  In  the  office  of  St.  Finnian,  the 
founder,  its  students  are  said  to  have  numbered  three 
thousand.  For  centuries  the  school  was  renowned  for 
scriptural  learning.  From  it,  says  Ussher,  "scholars  came 
out  in  as  great  numbers  as  Greeks  from  the  side  of  the 
horse  of  Troy." 

Clonfert  rivaled  Clonard  in  fame  and  in  the  number  of 
its  students.  It  was  an  extremely  wealthy  foundation, 
endowed  with  large  estates  of  fertile  land,  so  that  its  later 
bishops  on  appointment  paid  into  the  papal  treasury  large 
sums  of  gold.  We  have  an  almost  complete  list  of  its 
bishops  and  abbots,  one  of  whom  was  Cummian,  whose 
celebrated  letter  on  the  Paschal  controversy,  addrest  to 
lona  early  in  the  seventh  century,  remarkable  for  its  eru- 
dition, urbanity,  and  modesty,  sheds  a  luminous  ray  on 
the  liberal  culture  dispensed  in  these  great  seats  of  learn- 
ing. The  city  of  Brendan,  once  peopled  by  multitudes 
of  eager  students,  noted  as  the  training  ground  of  the 
greatest  of  preceptors,  is  to-day  a  vast  solitude. 

The  site  of  Clonmacnois  is  almost  in  the  center  of  Ire- 
land. This  famous  institution  possest  rich  lands  and 
Prince  Diarmuid,  one  of  the  sons  of  Cerbaill,  the  high- 
king,  whom  he  succeeded  as  Diarmuid  II,  made  it  the 
particular  object  of  his  munificence,  so  that  it  became  en- 
dowed as  a  seminary  for  the  whole  nation.  Both  Clon- 
macnois and  Clonfert  cultivated  Irish  learning  with 
especial  distinction,  so  that  to  the  labor  of  their  schools 
we  are  indebted  for  the  leading  authentic  records  of 

34 


Bridging  the  Old  World  and  the  New 

ancient  Ireland,  and  for  the  preservation  of  important 
compositions  of  the  bards  and  recensions  of  the  old  Irish 
laws,  known  as  the  Brehon  codes.  A  forest  of  inscribed 
stones  still  stands  amid  the  ruins  of  Clonmacnois — the 
ruined  cathedral  with  seven  oratories,  round  tower  and 
decorated  high  crosses — some  of  the  inscriptions  in  Latin, 
some  even  in  Hebrew,  but  over  two  hundred  of  them  in 
the  medieval  Irish  tongue  which  the  cultivation  of  Latin 
did  not  impede  or  supersede.^  The  fame  of  Bangor, 
which  appears  to  have  been  the  mother  of  Bangor  in 
Wales,  was  known  to  St.  Bernard  in  Gaul,  who  has  de- 
scribed it  as  "the  training  ground  of  monks  in  many  a 
thousand,  the  head  of  many  a  monastery,  a  truly  holy 
place,  fertile  in  saints,  yielding  the  richest  harvests  for 
God."^  Monasterboice,  Moville,  Glendalough,  the  Co- 
lumbiad  foundations,  and  the  schools  of  Thomond  and 
Desmond,  nearly  all  founded  in  the  sixth  century,  were 
educational  institutions  second  only  in  celebrity.  Arbor- 
eta of  civilization,  the  medieval  counterparts  of  Zeno's 
garden  and  Plato's  Academe,  the  beneficiaries  of  modern 
learning  might  well  take  off  their  shoes  in  treading  these 
now  silent  glades,  for  there  are  few  more  sacred  spots 
over  which  the  arts  and  refinements  have  bloomed.^ 

1  "At  eve  they  came 

To  Ciaran's  green,  to  holy  Clonmacnois, 
To  Clonmacnois  upon  a  flowery  slope 
Amid  a  rushry  by  the  pure,  bright  Shannon, 
Where  all  was  blest  and  still. 
And  in  that  place 

In  after  time  a  sacred  school  and  city 
Should  rise — Naimh  Ciaran's  city — and  should  grow 
Like  a  tall  tree,  where  rule  and  truth  and  wisdom 
Should  spread  through  half  the  land." 

(Tain  [Epil.    Writing  of  the  Tain],  transl.  Hutton,  p.  448.) 

2  Vita  Malach. 

3  The  principal  Irish  schools  were:  Armagh,  Kildare.  Noendrum,  Louth, 
Emly,  St.  Ibar,  Cluainfois,  St.  Asicus,  all  founded  in  the  fifth  century;  St. 
Enda  of  Aran,  Clonard,  Clonfert,  Moville,  Clonmacnois,  Derry,  Durrow,  Kells, 
lona,  Bangor,  Clonenagh,  Glendalough,  Tuam,  founded  in  the  sixth  century; 
and  Lismore,  Cork,  Ross,  Inisfallen,  Mungret,  Iniscaltra,  Birr,  Roscrea,  In- 
isboffln,  Mayo  of  the  Saxons,  founded  in  the  seventh  century.  These  leave 
out  of  account  the  more  numerous  lay  and  professional  schools,  some  of 
which  were  very  celebrated,  as  that  of  Tuaim  Drecain,  where  general  liter- 
ature, law  and  the  arts  were  taught.  (Vid.  Healy.  Ireland's  Ancient  Schools 
and  Scholars;  O'Curry,  Lectures,  II.) 

35 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

3.  Centers  of  Intellectual  Activity 

The  Irish  monasteries  were  not  places  wholly  attuned  to 
mystic  contemplation,  but  great  centers  of  knowledge  and 
intellectual  activity.  As  the  sixth  century  progressed 
they  assumed  more  and  more  the  character  of  great  studia 
generalia,  reaching  forth  over  the  whole  contemporary 
field  of  learning/ 

The  monastic  buildings  were  mostly  grouped  round  an 
oratorio  or  basilica,  as  Colgan  calls  it — with  a  rampart — 
as  with  caiseal,  rath  or  lis — circularly  or  ovally  surround- 
ing the  whole,  tho  sometimes  rectangular  also.  This  was 
after  the  fashion  of  the  houses  of  the  princely  and  well- 
to-do  in  Ireland  and  partook  of  the  character  of  a  dun. 
The  plan,  which  was  afterward  followed  in  the  Irish 
foundations  which  later  garlanded  Europe,  included 
churches,  storehouses,  kilns,  mills,  sacristies  or  side  houses, 
the  abbot's  house,  the  great  house  or  refectory,  the  cuisine 
or  kitchen,  the  hospice  or  guest  house,  the  scriptorium 
and  library,  and  a  vast  number  of  cells  distributed  in 
streets  or  squares.  In  course  of  time  round  towers  rose 
over  the  assemblage  of  buildings  with  sculptured  high 
crosses  near  by. 

The  monastic  "family"  included  priests,  deacons,  minor 
clerks,  and  laymen,  who  all  yielded  obedience  to  the  abbot, 
as  an  army  to  the  commander-in-chief.  It  was  a  maxim 
that  they  had  to  support  and  clothe  themselves,  and  their 
work  included  agriculture,  dairying,  the  breeding  of  sheep 
and  cattle,  architecture,  writing  and  ornamenting  books, 
and  cabinet-making.  In  all  this  labor  they  attained  in- 
comparable skill,  and  as  smiths  and  braziers  in  various 
kinds  of  metals  they  outdistanced  all  rivalry  In  Europe. 

1  "One  of  the  most  striking  features  of  the  organization  of  the  early 
monastic  church  in  Ireland  and  Scotland  was  its  provision  for  the  cultiva- 
tion of  learning  and  for  the  training  of  its  members  in  sacred  and  profane 
literature."     (Skene,  Celtic  Scotland,  II,  p.  419.) 

36 


Bridging  the  Old  World  and  the  New 

All  the  studies  of  the  time  were  taught  in  the  larger 
Irish  schools  mainly  through  the  medium  of  the  Gaelic 
language,  not  merely  theology,  but  philosophy,  mathe- 
matics, rhetoric,  poetry,  hagiography,  natural  science  as 
then  understood,  grammar,  chronology,  astronomy,  agri- 
culture, Greek,  Latin  and  even  Hebrew.  The  references 
to  "learned  scribes,"  "professors  of  divinity,"  "wise  doc- 
tors," "vessels  full  of  wisdom,"  "moderators,"  "rectors," 
and  "regents"  in  which  the  annals  teem,  bear  witness  to 
a  full,  rounded,  unflagging  intellectual  life. 

While  Irish  was  the  usual  medium  of  instruction,  Latin 
was  also  largely  employed,  and  often  a  mixture  of  the  two, 
as  is  immediately  observable  from  a  study  of  the  Irish  an- 
nals and  the  scholia,  where  the  languages  intermingle  in 
a  manner  that  show  they  were  equally  living  tongues  to 
the  writers.  The  magister  scholae  or  scholasticus  held 
the  text-book  before  him  and  expounded  the  author,  and 
this  was  the  method  employed  whether  the  subject  was 
grammar,  dialectics,  Irish  poetry  or  any  other  subject. 
Apart  from  the  distinctively  Irish  studies  and  divinity  the 
scope  of  learning  in  the  Irish  schools  both  at  home  and 
abroad  was  mainly  comprised  within  the  seven  liberal 
arts  and  philosophy,  to  which  something  of  medicine  and 
law  was  added,  although  these  professional  studies  had 
special  schools  of  their  own,  as  will  be  shown.  The 
Trivium — grammar,  dialectic  and  rhetoric — and  the 
Quadrivium — geometry,  arithmetic,  music,  astronomy — 
were,  in  their  form  at  least,  a  legacy  from  old  Roman 
education.  They  appear  in  the  Disciplinarum  libri 
novem  of  Varro  in  the  first  century  B.  C.  and  they  were 
introduced  into  the  educational  system  of  the  Middle 
Ages  mainly  through  Augustine  and  Martianus  Capella, 
both  of  whom  were  great  favorites  in  the  Irish  schools. 

37 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

It  is  clear  that  the  scope  of  these  arts  could  be  made 
very  much  wider  than  the  names  suggest.  There  was 
nothing  that  was  mechanical  or  traditional  in  the  Irish 
use  of  them  and  from  the  beginning  Irishmen  showed 
little  disposition  to  be  content  with  what  was  handed 
down,  but  sought  to  explore  new  fields  of  their  own. 
Under  grammar  became  included  the  study  of  Irish,  Latin 
and  Greek  literature.  They  carried  the  study  of  dialec- 
tic, which  in  their  hands  comprised  the  core  of  modern 
logic,  to  so  high  a  pitch  that  in  the  Carolingian  era  they 
were  the  most  bewilderingly  skilled  controversialists  in 
Europe,  and  dialectic  came  to  be  looked  upon  and  feared 
as  a  distinctively  Irish  branch  of  intellectual  legerdemain. 
Rhetoric  covered  the  study  of  law  also,  and  a  mere  glance 
over  the  great  volumes  containing  the  old  Irish  laws, 
called  the  Brehon  Laws,  the  most  copious  and  authentic 
mass  of  material  bearing  on  the  history  of  Ireland,  will 
give  an  idea  of  the  labor  such  study  entailed.  Geometry 
included  geography,  natural  history  and  the  medicinal 
properties  of  plants.  Though  the  Irish  adopted  the  Gre- 
gorian chant,  they  were  themselves  the  most  advanced 
people  in  Europe  in  the  field  of  music  and  their  pursuit 
of  that  study  was  as  a  result  almost  exclusively  Irish. 

4.  Text-books  and  Learned  Degrees 

We  are  not  familiar  with  all  the  text-books  in  the  hands 
of  the  Irish  masters,  for  they  were  in  possession  of  both 
Latin  and  Greek  works  that  had  become  almost  unknown 
on  the  Continent.  We  are  pretty  well  informed,  however 
in  regard  to  the  text-books  most  in  use  in  the  Irish  schools 
both  in  Ireland  and  abroad.  They  surpassed  all  the 
scholars  of  the  time  in  their  familiarity  with  such  works 
of  Aristotle  as  were  available,  and  the  trenchant  employ- 

38 


Bridging  the  Old  World  and  the  New 

ment  they  made  of  his  De  Interpretatione  with  Porphy- 
ry's Eisagoge  made  philosophy  almost  wholly  occupied 
with  logical  problems  in  the  earliest  scholastic  period.  Of 
Plato's  dialogs  the  Irish  scholars  appear  to  have  known 
the  Timaeus  in  the  original,  tho  on  the  Continent  it  was 
known  only  in  the  translation  of  Chalcidius,  made  in  the 
fifth  century.  The  commentaries  of  Chalcidius,  the  works 
of  Augustine,  the  De  Dogmate  Platonis  of  Apuleius,  and 
the  commentary  of  Macrobius  on  Cicero's  Dream  of 
Scipio,  gave  them  an  acquaintance  with  the  general  phi- 
losophy of  Plato.  Translations  and  compilations  of 
Marius  Victorinus,  Claudianus  Mamertus  and  Donatus 
were  read  and  expounded  in  the  Irish  schools,  and  later 
the  works  of  the  Neo-Platonists  filtered  through  them. 
One  of  their  current  text-books  in  philosophy  was  the  De 
Consolatione  of  Boethius  and  in  the  tenth  century  they 
became  familiar  also  with  his  translation  of  the  Cate- 
goriae  of  Aristotle.  They  used  some  of  the  rhetorical 
and  dialectical  treatises  of  Cicero,  such  as  his  Topica  and 
De  Offiiciis — indeed  we  have  Irish  scholars  to  thank  for 
the  preservation  of  parts  of  his  Pro  Fonteio  and  In 
Pisonem.  They  knew  also  the  De  Beneficiis  of  Seneca  and 
the  De  Rerum  Natura  of  Lucretius.  Priscian  and 
Donatus  were  their  chief  authorities  on  grammar,  and 
other  greatly  used  text-books  in  the  Irish  schools  were  the 
commentaries  and  original  works  of  Martianus  Capella, 
Charisius,  Cassiodorus,  Boethius  and  Isidore. 

Jerome  was  their  great  authority  on  Scripture.  The 
Moralia  of  Gregory  the  Great  was  the  chief  text-book  in 
the  field  of  moral  theology,  particularly  at  Armagh.  Irish 
divinity  students  were  also  familiar  with  the  works  of 
Hilary,  Ambrose,  Athanasius,  Orosius,  Pope  Leo,  Chrys- 
ostom,  Lactantius,  Sedulius,  Juvencus,  Qement  of  Alex- 

39 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 


andria  and  Origen.  Their  favorite  gospel  was  St.  John. 
They  made  much  use  of  the  "Vetus  Itala,"  an  older  bib- 
lical version  than  the  Vulgate  of  Jerome,  which  displaced 
it.  The  Book  of  Psalms  was  their  vade-mecum  of  praise 
and  prayer,  and  many  of  them  knew  it  by  heart.  With 
some  the  recital  of  the  "Three  Fifties"  was  a  daily  prac- 
tise. Their  wide  acquaintance  with  the  old  classical 
writers  is  further  shown  by  the  reminiscences  of  them 
which  occur  in  their  works,  and  by  the  reproductions  of 
them  in  the  Irish  script  or  in  Irish  foundations  all  over 
Europe. 

In  the  great  monastic  universities,  as  well  as  in  the 
lay  schools,  degrees  were  conferred  just  as  they  are  con- 
ferred in  the  universities  of  to-day.  There  could  be  no 
clearer  proof  of  the  thoroughgoing  character  of  Irish  edu- 
cation, of  the  single-hearted  pursuit  of  learning  in  the 
widest  sense  obtainable,  and  of  the  solid  hard  work  of  the 
scholars,  than  the  elaborate  system  of  graduation  in  learn- 
ing and  the  professions  which  the  Irish  schools  had  devel- 
oped in  that  early  age.  The  "seven  grades  of  wisdom" 
were  carefully  distinguished  not  merely  in  the  schools 
but  by  the  old  national  laws,  and  they  are  as  numerous 
and  distinctive  as  the  academic  titles  and  initials  of  mod- 
ern times — Senators,  Fellows,  LL.D.,  M.A.,  A.B.,  and 
the  like.  In  the  old  Irish  system  each  degree  represented 
a  year  of  study,  and  there  were  degrees  both  for  the  students 
and  the  professors,  in  the  case  of  the  first  covering  seven 
years,  and  in  the  case  of  the  second,  covering  fourteen. 
The  degrees  marking  the  student's  career  beginning  from 
the  lowest  to  the  highest  were:  Felmac,  Freimeidhed, 
Fursaindidh,  Sruth  do  Aill,  Sai,  Anruth,  and  Rosai.  In 
addition  to  these,  the  higher  degrees  for  the  professor 
were    Caogdach,    Foghlaintidhe,    Desgibal,    Staruidhe, 

40 


Bridging  the  Old  World  and  the  New 

Foirceadlaidhe,  Sair  Canoine,  and  Drumcli.  The  High 
Professor  was  also  called  an  Ollamh  (Ollave),  which  rep- 
resented the  highest  degree  in  every  profession  or  branch 
of  learning.  There  were  degrees  conferred  in  the  pro- 
fessional and  lay  schools  which  will  be  mentioned  later, 
and  degrees  which  represented  other  distinctions,  all  of 
which  are  described  in  the  Brehon  law  treatises;  but 
these  may  be  taken  as  representative.* 

1  Brehon  Laws,  Vol.  IV,  Sequel  of  the  Crith  Gablach;  pp.  357-9;  V,  Small 
Primer;  Cormac's  Glossary,  pp.  5,  6,  34,  53;  Keating',  History,  pp.  446,  454. 
See  also  Healy,  Ireland's  Ancient  Schools  and  Scholars,  p.  596,  seq.;  Joyce, 
Social  Hist.  I,  Chap.  XI  (Learning  and  Education)  pp.  396-471;  Richey,  Short 
Hist.,  p.  83;  Cambrensis  Eversus,  277  seq.;  O'Curry,  Man.  and  Customs,  I, 
79-83. 


41 


CHAPTER  IV 

"HIGH   SCHOLARS  OF  THE  WESTERN  WORLD" 

I.  Learned  Classes  of  Laymen.  2.  Great  Colleges  Simultaneously 
Active  from  Sixth  Century  Onwards.  3.  "Philosophy"  and  "Wis- 
dom."    4,  Numbers   of   Students. 

I.  Learned  Classes  of  Laymen 

THE  advantages  of  the  liberal  education  thus  pro- 
vided were  widely  distributed  among  the  people 
of  Ireland.  ''It  has  been  sometimes  asserted,"  says 
a  modern  writer,  "that  in  early  times  in  Ireland  learning 
was  confined  within  the  walls  of  the  monasteries ;  but  this 
view  is  quite  erroneous.  Tho  the  majority  of  the  men  of 
learning  in  Christian  times  were  ecclesiastics,  secular 
learning  was  by  no  means  confined  to  the  clergy.  We 
have  seen  that  the  monastic  schools  had  many  lay  pupils 
and  that  there  were  numerous  lay  schools ;  so  that  a  con- 
siderable body  of  the  lay  community  must  have  been  more 
or  less  educated — able  to  read  and  write.  Nearly  all  the 
professional  physicians,  lawyers  (or  brehons),  poets, 
builders  and  historians,  were  laymen;  a  large  proportion 
of  the  men  chronicled  m  our  annals,  during  the  whole 
period  of  Ireland's  literary  preeminence,  as  distinguished 
in  art  and  general  literature,  were  also  laymen;  lay  tutors 
were  often  employed  to  teach  princes;  and,  in  fact,  laymen 
played  a  very  important  part  in  the  diffusion  of  knowledge 
and  in  building  up  that  character  for  learning  that  ren- 
dered Ireland  so  famous  in  former  times.  One  has  only 
to  glance  through  Ware's  or  O'Reilly's  'Irish  Writers'  or 
Dr.  Hyde's  'Literary  History  of  Ireland'  to  see  the  truth 
of  this."^ 

1  Joyce,  Social  History  of  Ireland,  I,   417. 

42 


"High  Scholars  of  the  Western  World" 

Laymen  figured  among  the  most  illustrious  of  the  Irish 
schoolmen.  Johannes  Scotus  Eriugena^  was,  it  would 
seem,  a  layman.  So  was  Flann  "most  famous  among  the 
many  writers,  one  of  the  most  learned  men  in  Europe  in 
philosophy,  literature,  history,  poetry  and  science,"  pro- 
fessor of  the  college  of  Monasterboice,  several  of  whose 
poems  as  well  as  his  Book  of  Annals  are  preserved.  Then 
there  was  Mugeor  Ua  More,  father  of  the  celebrated  St. 
Malachy,  "chief  lector  of  divinity  of  this  school  (Ar- 
magh) and  of  all  the  rest  of  Europe,"  as  the  Annals  of 
the  Four  Masters  call  him.  "It  is  not  the  least  striking 
circumstance  in  those  dreary  times,"  notes  Cardinal  New- 
man, "that  in  an  age  when  even  kings  and  great  men  often 
could  not  read,  professors  in  the  Irish  colleges  were  some- 
times men  of  noble  birth.  St.  Malachy's  father,  though  a 
member  of  a  family  of  distinction,  as  St.  Bernard  tells  us, 
was  a  celebrated  professor  of  Armagh.  History  records 
the  names  of  others  similarly  eminent,  both  by  their  de- 
scent and  by  their  learning.  It  is  impossible  not  to  ad- 
mire and  venerate  a  race  which  displayed  such  inex- 
tinguishable love  of  science  and  letters."^  Apart  from  the 
monks,  the  average  Irish  layman  was  well  educated.  "The 
national  tradition  of  monastic  and  lay  schools  preserved 
to  Erin,  what  was  lost  in  the  rest  of  Europe,  a  learned 
class  of  laymen.  Culture  was  as  frequent  and  honorable 
in  the  Irish  chief  or  warrior  as  in  the  cleric."^ 

To  the  monasteries  and  schools  were  attached  teach 
scripta  or  scriptoria  and  libraries,  furnished  with  waxen 

1 1  use  the  form  Eriugena  because  it  is  etymologrically  correct  and  because 
it  was  one  of  the  forms  used  by  Johannes  himself.  Its  meaning  is  "born  in 
Ireland" — "Eriu"  being  the  most  ancient  form  of  the  Gaelic  name  of  Ireland 
known.  John  was  known  to  his  contemporaries  chiefly  as  "John  the  Irishman" 
(Johannes  Scotus).  The  form  "Johannes  Scotus  Erigena"  is  not  earlier  than 
the  seventeenth  century. 

2  Historical  Sketches.  III.  279-80. 

3  Mrs.  Alice  Stopford  Green,  "Irish  Nationality." 

43 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of  Britain 

tablets,  parchments,  inks,  styles,  and  quills,  where  manu- 
scripts were  edited  and  copied.  To  many  of  them  were 
attached  schools  of  art  in  illumination  or  ornamentation 
of  books,  in  metal  work,  in  painting,  in  sculpture,  in  carv- 
ing, and  in  enamel  work.  Clonmacnois  and  Kells  had  art 
schools  which  produced  work  in  metal  and  in  the  illu- 
mination of  books  which  has  remained  unapproached  to 
our  day.  But  Irish  preeminence  and  influence  in  metal 
work  are  evidenced  above  all  in  the  striking  fact  that  al- 
most the  entire  extant  ecclesiastical  specimens  of  western 
Europe  from  the  early  medieval  age  are  shown  to  be  Irish 
or  from  Irish  models.  The  vast  colonnade  of  pillar  towers 
that  garlanded  the  island,  the  noble  Rock  of  Cashel 
and  the  carved  sea  rocks  of  the  Skelligs,  furnish  sufficient 
testimonials  to  Ireland's  schools  of  architecture,  during 
a  period  when  architecture,  in  any  true  sense,  was  almost 
dead  in  Europe. 

Irish  architects  appear  to  have  been  restrained  by 
ancient  traditions  of  apostolic  measurements,  tho  they 
could  fit  and  dovetail  great  stones  from  ten  to  seventeen 
feet  in  length.  Architect  and  sculptor  were  often  com- 
bined in  the  same  person,  as  in  the  Italians  of  the  Renais- 
sance, for  these  Irishmen  were  nothing  if  not  versatile.^ 

2.  Great  Colleges  Simultaneously  Active  from 
Sixth  Century  Onward 

The  standards  of  learning  were  high.  The  schools 
themselves  were  "of  unspeakable  excellence,"  in  the  judg- 
ment of  Aldhelm,  who  had  himself  Irish  masters.  "Ire- 
land had  become  the  heiress  to  the  classical  and  theologi- 
cal learning  of  the  western  empire  of  the  fourth  and  fifth 
centuries,  and  a  period  of  humanism  was  thus  ushered  in 

1  See  "Irish  Archseological  Remains,"  by  Benedict  Fitzpatrick,  Encyclo- 
pedia Americana  (1918)  vol.  15. 

44 


"High  Scholars  of  the  Western  World" 

which  reached  its  culmination  during  the  sixth  and  fol- 
lowing centuries."^  The  graduates  of  the  Irish  acade- 
mies wrote  Latin,  not  to  speak  of  Greek,  better  than  it 
was  written  by  any  other  people  in  western  Europe. 

They  maintained  the  same  method  of  education  till  the 
sixteenth  century.  In  the  year  1571,  centuries  after  the 
golden  age  of  Irish  learning,  amid  the  many  misfortunes 
that  had  fallen  on  the  country,  Edmund  Campion  found 
Irish  schools  for  law  and  medicine  in  operation,  where 
Latin  was  still  employed  as  a  living  tongue:  "They  speake 
Latine  like  a  vulgar  tongue,  learned  in  their  common 
schools  of  leach-craft  and  law,  whereat  they  begin  (as)' 
children  and  hold  on  sixteene  or  twenty  yeares,  conning 
by  roate  the  Aphorisms  of  Hypocrates  and  the  Civill  In- 
stitutions and  a  few  other  parings  of  these  two  faculties."^ 
The  long  course  of  sixteen  to  twenty  years  indicates  that 
Ireland  in  eclipse  still  held  to  her  ideal  of  thoroughness  in 
education. 

Testimony  as  to  the  high  and  uniform  level  of  educa- 
tion among  the  medieval  Irish  people  is  likewise  afforded 
by  the  fact  of  the  uniformity  of  the  language.  Old  Irish 
differs  considerably  from  the  modern  form  of  the  lan- 
guage, but  there  were,  as  far  as  we  can  judge,  no  dialects 
in  it.  The  same  language  was  spoken  and  written  in  the 
Decies  as  in  Tyrconnell,  from  the  most  southerly  point  of 
Ireland  to  the  most  northerly  part  of  Scotland.  A  Gaelic 
book  written  in  the  sixth  or  ninth  century  would  be  under- 
stood from  Cape  Clear  to  the  remotest  parts  of  Scotland. 
The  Irish  in  the  "Book  of  Deir"  is  couched  in  the  most 
ancient  form  of  Gaelic  known  to  have  been  written  in 
Scotland  and  still  existing.  The  Gaelic  in  this  book  was 
probably  written  in  the  Abbey  of  Deir  in  Aberdeenshire 

1  Kuno  Meyer,  Ancient  Irish  Poetry,  Pref. 

2  "Account  of  Ireland,"  p.  18. 

45 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of  Britain 

in  or  before  the  twelfth  century.  Its  language,  however, 
is  pure  Irish,  exactly  paralleling  the  speech  used  in  Irish 
books  of  the  same  age.  Complete  national  unity,  a  uni- 
form literary  speech,  a  like  culture,  prevailed  through  the 
broad  Gaedhaltacht  of  Eire^  and  Alba. 

We  have  the  testimony  of  the  Irish  records  that  the 
great  Irish  colleges  were  in  active  existence  not  at  differ- 
ent periods  but  all  together  from  the  sixth  century  on- 
ward. When  we  bear  in  mind  that  there  were  also,  dur- 
ing the  whole  period,  the  secular  or  lay  schools,  to  which 
I  will  refer  later,  and  which  tho  smaller  were  far  more 
numerous  and  scattered  all  over  the  country — ^we  shall 
have  some  idea,  as  one  writer  remarks,  of  the  universal 
love  of  learning  that  existed  in  Ireland  in  those  days  and 
of  the  general  spread  of  education.^ 

3.   ''Philosophy"  and  "Wisdom" 

Irish  monasticism  differed  from  continental  monasti- 
cism  in  its  intellectual  outlook.  Monachism  in  Egypt 
and  on  the  European  mainland  simply  represented  flight 
from  an  apparently  doomed  and  demoralized  world.  It 
was  in  response  to  the  yearning  and  the  need  which  men 
felt  of  getting  away  from  worry  and  fear,  and  villainy 
and  contention.    It  eschewed  ambition  and  undue  effort 

1  The  Gaelic  or  Irisli  name  for  Ireland  is  Eire,  genitive  Eireann,  whence 
Erin,  also  Ire-land.  The  Gaelic  or  Irish  name  for  Scotland  is  Alba,  which 
sometimes  stood  for  the  whole  of  Britain. 

2  The  same  schools  in  Ireland  produced  men  of  international  fame  in 
widely  different  periods.  Thus  Moville  produced  Finnian  and  Columcille  in 
the  sixth  century  and  Marianus  Scotus  in  the  eleventh.  Armagh  sent  forth 
Benignus  in  the  fifth,  Gildas  in  the  sixth,  and  Imar  in  the  twelfth  century. 
Clonard  produced  the  famous  "Twelve  Apostles"  in  the  sixth  and  Aileran  in 
the  seventh.  Clonard  produced  Fintan  and  Moinenn  in  the  sixth,  Fursey  and 
Cummian  in  the  seventh,  and  Cormac  and  others  in  the  ninth.  Clonmacnois 
founded  by  Ciaran  on  Saturday,  January  23,  544,  produced  Alithir  in  the 
sixth,  King  Guaire  in  the  seventh,  MacConcumba  in  the  eighth,  and  Colgu, 
Josephus  Scotus,  perhaps  Sedulius  Scotus  and  a  host  of  others  in  the  ninth. 
Columbanus  went  from  Bangor  in  the  sixth,  Dungal  in  the  eighth  and  ninth, 
and  Malachy  in  the  twelfth.  And  so  with  the  other  great  seats  of  learning 
In  Ireland. 

46 


I 


"High  Scholars  of  the  Western  World" 

or  strain,  intellectual  or  otherwise/  It  sought  simply  for 
retirement,  rest,  peace,  recollection,  contentment,  simplic- 
ity, the  condition  of  communing  with  God  and  waiting 
for  the  end.  The  woes  and  iniquity  of  the  fallen  em- 
pire had  indeed  convinced  men  that  there  was  nothing 
more  to  be  done  for  it;  it  was  simply  a  case  of  sauve 
qui  pent,  and  earnest  men  as  a  result  turned  their  back 
upon  it  and  fixed  their  eyes  on  the  world  to  come.  This 
was  the  spirit  of  early  continental  monachism,  and  as  the 
monasteries  were  henceforth  the  only  places  where  there 
was  any  attempt  at  education  at  all,  an  age  that  was  truly 
dark  settled  on  Europe.^ 

While  asceticism  in  Ireland  was  highly  esteemed, 
asceticism  did  not  inhibit  intellectual  culture.  On  the 
contrary  wisdom,  learning,  mental  development,  were 
ardently  sought  after  by  these  very  ascetics.  "They  drew 
back  from  no  inquiry;  boldness  was  on  a  level  with  faith," 
says  Montalembert.  "Their  strength  lay  in  those  exercises 
of  pure  reason  which  go  by  the  name  of  philosophy  or 
wisdom,"  remarks  Newman.  They  were  "proficient  be- 
yond all  comparison  in  the  world's  wisdom,"  in  the  words 
of  the  ninth  century  "Monk  of  St.  Gall."  They  were 
"celebrated  for  their  philosophical  knowledge"  (sophia 
clari)  remarks  another  ancient  writer.  In  their  own 
estimation  given  in  the  Irish  Annals  they  were  the  "high 
scholars  of  the  western  world,"  philosophers  "without 
equals  this  side  of  the  Alps,"  and  "vessels  full  of  all  the 
wisdom  and  knowledge  of  their  time." 

1  Thus  the  rule  of  St.  Benedict  forbade  a  Benedictine  to  own  a  book  or  a 
pen,  and  provided  only  two  hours  a  day  for  reading^,  and  that  pious  reading. 

-  The  general  belief  that  the  Benedictines,  who  were  the  only  "rivals"  of 
the  Irish  monks  in  the  period  under  review,  were  learned  men  is  totally 
erroneous.  No  branch  of  the  Benedictines  making-  learned  studies  their  aim 
existed  till  the  establishment  of  the  Maurists  in  the  seventeenth  century. 
Men  like  Mabillon  and  Montfaucon  have  given  the  Benedictines  their  modern 
reputation  for  learning,  but  in  the  early  medieval  period  the  Benedictines 
were  far  from  remarkable  for  culture.  The  work  of  the  Irish  monks  has  in 
large  part  been  credited  to  them. 

47 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

Their  mental  attitude  is  boldly  enunciated  by  the  in- 
comparable Johannes  Scotus  Eriugena,  himself  in  com- 
parison with  the  age  in  which  he  lived  as  much  a  miracle 
as  Plato  or  Augustine:  "I  am  not  so  browbeaten  by 
authority  nor  so  fearful  of  the  assault  of  less  able  minds 
as  to  be  afraid  to  utter  with  fearless  forehead  what  true 
reason  clearly  determines  and  indubitably  demonstrates; 
especially  as  there  must  be  question  of  such  only  among 
the  wise,  to  whom  nothing  is  more  sweet  to  hear  than  true 
reason,  nothing  more  delightful  to  investigate  when  it  is 
found."^ 

"While  on  the  mainland  and  in  Britain  budding  Chris- 
tianity and  the  germs  of  western  culture,  such  as  it  was, 
were  effectually  trodden  under  foot  by  the  various  hordes 
of  Vandals,  Alemanni,  Huns,  Franks,  Heruli,  Lango- 
bards.  Angles  and  Saxons,  and  the  Merovingian  kingdom 
sank  lower  and  lower,  when  universal  crudeness  and 
depravity  seemed  to  have  gained  the  upper  hand  and 
the  entire  West  threatened  to  sink  hopelessly  into  bar- 
barism, the  Irish  established  several  seminaries  of  learn- 
ing in  their  own  country,"  says  a  German  authority.  "The 
standard  of  learning  (in  Bangor,  Armagh,  Clonmacnois, 
Lismore)  was  much  higher  than  with  Gregory  the  Great 
and  his  followers.  It  was  derived  without  interruption 
from  the  learning  of  the  fourth  century,  from  men  such 
as  Ambrose,  Jerome,  and  Augustine.  Here  also  were  to 
be  found  such  specimens  of  classical  literature  as  Virgil's 
works  among  the  ecclesiastical  writings,  and  an  acquain- 
tance with  Greek  authors  as  well  beside  the  opportunity 
of  free  access  to  the  very  sources  of  Christianity."* 

iDe  Divisione  Naturae,  V,  I,  p.  39. 

2  Zimmer,  Preuss,  Jahrb,  1887,  trs.     "Irish  Element  in  Med.  Culture,"  p.  19. 


48 


"High  Scholars  of  the  Western  World" 

4.  Numbers  of  Students 

Judged  by  results  the  system  of  education  in  the  Irish 
schools  could  hardly  have  been  bettered  in  those  days. 
The  graduates  it  trained  and  disciplined  assuredly  left 
their  impress  on  the  epoch  in  which  they  lived.  "From 
the  schools  of  Ireland  were  to  issue  the  men  who  were 
destined  during  the  next  two  centuries  not  merely  to  leave 
their  mark  upon  the  church  as  theologians  and  founders 
of  monasteries,  but,  further,  to  play  an  important  part 
in  molding  the  new  civilization  of  the  Prankish  empire, 
to  lay  the  foundations  of  modern  philosophy,  and  to  pro- 
mote the  study  of  natural  science  and  literature."* 

These  Irish  seats  of  learning  had  large  numbers  of 
students.  Armagh  had  3,000,  many  of  them,  as  at  other 
places,  from  the  Continent.  At  Clonard  there  were  over 
3,000,  all  residing  in  and  around  the  college,  while  Bangor 
and  Clonfert  had  each  as  many.  Other  colleges  had 
smaller  numbers  of  students,  ranging  from  2,000  down 
to  fifty.^  At  the  head  of  each  of  these  colleges  was  the 
"Fer  leiginn"  or  "Man  of  Learning,"  who  was  sometimes 
a  layman,  generally  a  cleric,  but  always  a  scholar  of  great 
renown.  The  abbot  presided  over  both  institutions — 
monastery  and  school  combined. 

Calling  to  mind  the  deserted  aspect  of  the  sites  of  these 
early  establishments  at  the  present  day  there  is  nothing 
more  remarkable  in  the  early  annals  than  the  busy  inter- 
course with  the  world  which  they  disclose.  Guests, 
illustrious  by  kingly  descent  or  civil  status  or  ecclesiastical 
rank,  were  ever  coming  and  going.  The  abbots  were 
wont  to  travel  in  chariots;  in  places  like  Iniscaltra,  Clon- 
fert, Clonmacnois,  lona,  Bangor  and  Monasterboice,  in 

1  C.  S.  Boswell,  "An  Irish  Precursor  of  Dante." 

2  See  Joyce,  Social  History,  I,  408;  Skene,  Celtic  Scotland,  II,  p.  419. 

5  49 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

the  vicinity  of  river,  lake  or  sea  they  had  also  fleets  of 
vessels  at  their  disposal.  Ships  would  come  in  laden 
with  foreign  merchandise  and  foreign  visitors  and  stu- 
dents and  they  would  bring  with  them  the  news  of  great 
events  that  were  happening  in  foreign  lands,  of  an  earth- 
quake in  Italy,  of  happenings  in  the  Orkneys  or  in  the 
valley  of  the  Loire,  of  the  progress  of  Irish  foundations 
abroad,  and  of  the  sacred  places  in  Palestine.  There 
were  horses  and  sheep  and  cattle,  and  farming  operations 
were  conducted  on  a  great  scale.  There  were  crowds  of 
monks  and  students  in  the  streets,  carrying  great  books, 
waxen  tablets,  and  leather  satchels,  and  from  the  cells 
of  the  masters  came  the  hum  of  animated  discussion  or 
the  voice  of  one  speaking  with  authority.  New  buildings 
of  wood  or  stone  were  being  erected,  round  towers  were 
slowly  arising  or  a  sculptor  worked  on  the  panels  of  a 
high  granite  cross,  with  the  eager  students  around  him 
watching.  Now  and  then  the  crowds  would  grow  silent 
and  make  a  passage  as  some  ''high  scholar  of  the  western 
world"  or  "apostle  of  Erin"  passed  through  them,  a  noble 
ascetic  with  long  hair  falling  on  his  shoulders  and  painted 
eyelids,  a  figure  clad  in  white  homespun,  one  perhaps 
that  had  turned  his  back  on  the  throne  of  Ireland  and  had 
thrown  down  the  sword  to  take  up  the  cultivation  of  the 
Scriptures  and  classic  letters.  Or  a  gayer  group  might 
appear  on  the  scene,  luxurious  in  raiment,  young,  hila- 
rious, care-free;  these  too  the  crowds  would  regard  with 
interest  and  deference — they  were  the  offspring  of  the 
great  reigning  families  of  Leinster,  of  Munster,  of  Con- 
naught  or  Meath  or  Ulster,  the  tanist  perhaps  to  the  high- 
king  amongst  them,  youths  without  a  physical  blemish 
and  therefore  of  kingly  potentiality,  some  the  heirs  of 
royal  clans  that  had  been  honored  in  Eire  before  the 

50 


I 


"High  Scholars  of  the  Western  World" 

Christian  era.  University  life  in  these  great  Irish  centers 
was  free  from  the  excesses  that  were  habitual  in  pagan 
Athens,  but  there  was  the  same  plenitude  of  high  spirits, 
of  eager  ambition,  of  thirst  after  new  knowledge,  of 
reverence  for  great  learning  and  lofty  character,  of  fierce 
joy  in  intellectual  conflict  that  marked  generous  youth  in 
Athens  and  Rome  as  in  the  medieval  universities  that 
succeeded  the  establishment  of  those  in  Ireland/ 

iSee  Healy,  Ireland's  Ancient  Schools  and  Scholars;  Burton,  History  of 
Scotland,  I,  254  seq.;  Joyce,  Social  History,  I,  Ch.  XI,  417  seq.;  Skene,  Celtic 
Scotland,  II,  75,  419-63;  Reeves,  Life  of  St.  Columba,  Adamnan,  passim; 
Stokes,  Anecdota  Oxoniensia,  Ser.  5,  passim. 


SI 


CHAPTER  V 

INSULA  SANCTORUM  ET  DOCTORUM 

I.  Intellectual  Leader  of  Christendom.  2.  Anglo-Saxon  Students  in 
Ireland,  3.  Special  Colleges  for  Princes.  4.  Going  to  Ireland  for 
Education  Long  Continued. 

I.   Intellectual  Leader  of  Christendom 

NOT  only  from  the  four  corners  of  Ireland  and 
Britain  but  also  from  every  country  in  Europe 
students  flocked  into  the  Irish  schools  attracted  by 
the  fame  of  their  professors  and  alumni,  who  with  rare 
and  sustained  passion  threw  their  souls  into  the  explora- 
tion of  the  realm  of  knowledge  with  results  that  astonished 
civilized  Europe.  The  celebrity  of  Ireland  as  the  uni- 
versity of  the  West  and  the  home  of  the  most  erudite  and 
speculative  of  nations  was  thus  bruited  over  the  known 
world,  which  henceforth  hailed  the  western  isle  as  the 
intellectual  leader  of  Christendom  and  the  Island  of  Saints 
and  Scholars.  Of  that  enduring  preeminence  Darme- 
steter  felicitously  says:  "The  classic  tradition  to  all  ap- 
pearances dead  in  Europe  burst  into  full  flower  in  the 
isle  of  Saints  and  the  Renaissance  began  in  Ireland  seven 
hundred  years  before  it  was  known  in  Italy.  For  three 
centuries  Ireland  was  the  asylum  of  the  higher  learning 
which  took  sanctuary  there  from  the  uncultivated  states 
in  Europe.  At  one  time  Armagh,  the  religious  capital 
of  Christian  Ireland,  was  the  metropolis  of  civilization."^ 
The  evidence  attesting  the  number  of  foreign  students 

1  English  Studies,  pp.  202-3. 

52 


Insula  Sanctorum  et  Doctorum 

in  the  island  has  come  from  various  sources  in  those 
days — 

"When  Ireland  flourished  in  fame 
Of  Wealthe  and  goodnesse  far  above  the  rest 
Of  all  that  bear  the  British  Islands'  name" 

as  Spenser  puts  it. 

Hardly  did  Greece  in  the  heyday  of  its  magnetic  power 
draw  more  powerfully  to  itself  the  adventurous  intellects 
of  foreign  nations  than  Ireland  during  the  centuries  of 
its  supremacy.  We  can  appraise  the  surprising  number 
of  these  foreigners  from  certain  testimonies.  Thus 
^ngus  the  Culdee,  in  his  litany,  written  at  the  end  of 
the  eighth  century,  invokes  the  intercession  of  many  hun- 
dreds of  saints — Romans,  Italians,  Egyptians,  Gauls,  Ger- 
mans, Britons,  Picts,  Saxons  or  English,  and  natives  of 
other  countries — who  were  buried  and  venerated  in 
Ireland,  and  whom  he  divided  into  groups,  chiefly 
according  to  the  localities  of  Ireland  in  which  they 
sojourned  and  died.  The  lives  of  St.  Patrick,  Ciaran, 
Declan,  Albeus,  Enda,  Maidoc,  Senan,  Brendan  and  other 
famous  Irishmen  furnish  testimonies  likewise  indicating 
the  large  numbers  of  foreigners  who  crossed  the  seas  to 
obtain  a  liberal  education  in  the  great  Irish  academies.* 

Thus  as  early  as  the  year  536,  in  the  time  of  Senan, 
there  arrived  in  Desmond  from  the  Continent  a  company 
of  fifty  students  and  seminarians,  who  were  led  thither 
to  study  in  the  great  establishment  at  Lismore  and  for 
the  purpose  of  perfecting  themselves  in  the  practices  of 
an  ascetic  life  under  Irish  directors.  On  another  occasion 
Senan  saw  seven  ships  sailing  up  the  Shannon  in  one  day 
laden  with  continental  scholars  for  the  great  school  of 
Clonfert,  situated  on  an  island  in  the  river.^ 

1  Anecdota  Oxonlensia,  Med.  and  Mod.,  Ser.  5,  passim. 
»  Anecdota  Oxon.,  Ser.  5,  Life  of  St.  Senan. 

53 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of   Britain 

An  engraving  of  stone  marks  the  grave  of  "Seven 
Romans"  (VII  Romani)  near  the  church  of  St.  Brecan 
in  the  great  isle  of  Arran.^  We  are  told  that,  among  the 
multitudes  of  students  who  attended  Armagh,  many  came 
from  other  countries  besides  Britain. 

The  office  of  Cathaldus  states  that  Gauls,  Angles,  Scots, 
Teutons  and  very  many  people  of  neighboring  nations 
v\^ent  to  hear  the  professor's  lectures  at  Lismore,  and 
Morini's  life  of  him,  published  in  Rome,  expresses  in 
poetic  terms  the  tradition  of  Lismore's  greatness  as  the 
educational  resort  of  foreigners.  "Crowds  of  Gaulish 
students,"  writes  Haureau,  "sought  the  Irish  shores  in 
order  to  win  back  again  from  their  former  pupils  the 
learning  they  had  lost  themselves."^ 

lona,  the  least  accessible  perhaps  of  the  Irish  seats  of 
learning,  had  all  sorts  of  visitors  besides  monks  and  stu- 
dents. Columcille  talked  with  mariners  sailing  south 
from  the  Orkneys,  and  others  coming  north  from  the  Loire 
with  their  tuns  of  wine  told  him  the  news  from  conti- 
nental Europe  and  how  a  town  in  Istria  had  been  wrecked 
by  earthquake.  From  Arculf,  a  bishop  of  Gaul,  who  had 
traveled  in  Palestine,  Syria,  Constantinople,  Alexandria 
and  other  parts  of  the  East,  Adamnan,  the  successor  of 
Columcille  as  abbot,  and  his  biographer,  derived  part  of 
the  information  on  which  he  based  his  work  "De  Locis 
Sanctis."  Visitors  from  abroad,  apart  from  students,  were 
numerous  in  some  of  the  other  Irish  establishments.  Thus 
Paulinus,  patriarch  of  Aquileia,  who  belonged  to 
Charlemagne's  court,  has  a  poem  addrest  to  one  Zacharias, 

1  It  is  reproduced  by  Petrie,  in  Ecclesiastical  Architecture. 

2  Singularit§s,  C.  I.  The  crowds  of  foreign  students  that  went  to  Ireland 
appear  more  remarkable  from  the  fact  that  there  is  apparently  only  one 
authenticated  instance  of  a  continental  student  going  to  a  school  In  England, 
which  was  so  much  nearer,  and  which  had  usually  to  be  crossed  in  the  journey 
to  Ireland.  This  was  the  case  of  Liudger,  who  studied  at  York  in  the  time 
of  Alcuin. 

54 


Insula   Sanctorum  et   Doctorum 

apparently  a  Greco-Italian,  who  went  from  the  Continent 
to  Britain  and  Ireland  and  there  distinguished  himself.* 

2.  Anglo-Saxon  Students  in  Ireland 

After  the  year  635  the  Anglo-Saxons  in  .particular 
crossed  over  to  Ireland  to  enjoy  the  liberal  advantages 
offered  by  its  schools  which  had  admitted  a  filtering  of 
Northumbrian  natives  for  several  decades  previously. 
Armagh  was  one  of  the  favorite  resorts  of  British  and 
English  students  and  continued  to  be  frequented  by  them 
down  to  the  time  of  the  Conqueror.  Gildas,  the  first 
historian  of  the  Britons,  seems  to  have  been  first  a  student 
and  then  regent  at  Armagh.  Anglo-Saxon  missionaries 
who  went  abroad  almost  all  received  their  training  in 
Ireland,  and  were  usually  led  by  Irishmen.  Alcuin  is 
stated  to  have  spent  some  years  at  Clonmacnois.  Sulger, 
afterwards  bishop  of  St.  Davids,  spent  from  ten  to  fifteen 
years  in  study  in  Ireland. 

Bede  provides  striking  testimony  as  to  the  numbers  of 
English  students  in  Ireland  and  the  hospitality  extended 
to  them.  He  tells  us  that  many  of  the  English  nation 
were  living  In  Ireland,  whither  they  had  repaired  either 
to  cultivate  the  sacred  studies  or  to  lead  a  life  of  greater 
strictness.  Some  of  them  became  monks;  others  were 
better  pleased  to  apply  to  reading  and  study,  going  about 
from  school  to  school  through  the  cells  of  the  masters; 
and  all  of  them  were  most  cheerfully  received  by  the 
Irish,  who  supplied  them  gratis  with  books  and  instruc- 
tion.^ 

Camden  in  his  description  of  Ireland  says:   "At  that 

iZacharias  frater,  domini  venerande  sacerdos,  , 

Accola  Brittaniae,  Latii  telluris  alumne, 

Hibemiaeque  decus  (Quellen  u.     Untersuchungen  zur  lateinischen  Phllo- 
logie    des    Mittelalters,    vol.    3    (1908)    p.    203).      The 
poem  is  in  MS.  Oxford  Bodl.  Add.  C  144,  Sale  XI. 
»HIst.  Eccles.  III.  XXVII. 

55 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of   Britain 

age  our  Anglo-Saxons  repaired  on  all  sides  to  Ireland  as 
to  a  general  mart  of  learning.  Whence  we  read  in  our 
writers  of  holy  men  that  they  went  to  study  in  Ireland 
(amandatus  est  ad  disciplinam  in  Hiberniam)."^ 

Seven  streets  of  a  town  called  Kilbally,  near  Rahan,  in 
what  is  now  called  King's  County,  were  wholly  occupied 
in  the  eighth  century  by  Gauls  or  foreigners.  "By  crowds 
the  readers  resort  thither  carried  over  by  ships"  says  Aid- 
helm.  Round  Aldhelm's  period,  Cadoc,  Egbert,  Willi- 
brord,^  the  two  Ewalds,  Plechelm,  were  conspicuous 
among  those  who  went  from  England  to  get  their  educa- 
tion in  Ireland. 

"But  not  by  the  Anglo-Saxons  alone,"  says  Zimmer, 
"was  Ireland  looked  upon  as  the  highest  seminary  of 
learning;  the  Franks  were  also  at  this  time  strongly  at- 
tracted by  her  great  fame.  Bede  mentions  a  Frank  named 
Agilberct  who  spent  several  years  in  the  study  of  theology 
in  Ireland  and  on  leaving  that  country  was  persuaded  to 
remain  for  a  time  in  England.  On  his  return  to  his  own 
country  he  was  made  bishop  of  Paris,  where  he  died  at 
an  advanced  age.  But  more  striking  than  all  these  indi- 
vidual instances  is  the  indisputable  fact  that  the  Irish 
were  destined  to  become  instructors  of  the  Germans, 
Franks,  and  Alemanni  in  every  department  of  knowledge 
of  the  time.'" 

An  interesting  visitor  in  Ireland  was  Haemgils,  emi- 
ment  for  his  good  works,  who  was  the  friend  of  Drythelm, 
whose  vision  of  the  other  world  is  told  in  detail  by  Bede. 
"He  is  still  living  a  solitary  life  in  the  island  of  Ireland^ 

1  Britannia. 

*  Alcuin  wrote  a  life  of  Willibrord,  a  completely  Hibemlclzed  Angle,  and  in 
it  he  furnishes  testimony  to  the  flourishing  state  of  the  Irish  schools.  Willi- 
brord left  Northumbria,  quia  in  Hibernia  scholasticam  eruditionem  viguisse 
audivit. — (Vita  Willib.  c  4.) 

sPreussiche  Jahrb.,  1887,  Jan.  trs.  "The  Irish  Element  in  Med.  Culture," 
pp.  42-3. 

56 


Insula  Sanctorum  et  Doctorum 

supporting  his  declining  age  with  coarse  bread  and  cold 
water,"  says  Bede.  It  was  from  him  that  Bede  heard  the 
story  of  Drythelm's  vision  as  told  by  Drythelm  himself 
to  King  Aldf  rid.  Haemgils  is  commemorated  among  the 
hermits  in  the  Liber  Vitae. 

3.   Special  Colleges  for  Princes 

It  is  noteworthy  too  that  the  reigning  families  of  Europe 
sent  their  heirs  to  Ireland  to  be  educated.  The  French 
prince,  Dagobert,  son  of  Sigebert,  king  of  Austrasia,  spent 
eighteen  years  in  Ireland.  He  was  educated  at  the  royal 
college  of  Slane,  near  Tara,  where  his  fellow  students 
included  many  Irish  princes.  On  his  return  to  France 
he  succeeded  his  father  as  ruler  and  had  many  Irishmen 
at  his  court. 

Dagobert,  in  some  accounts,  is  said  to  have  been  banished 
to  Ireland  by  the  major-domo  Grimold,  who  sought  to 
usurp  the  kingly  authority  for  his  own  family.  Eddi's 
life  of  Wilfrid  tells  us  that  his  friends  and  relatives,  hav- 
ing learnt  from  travelers  (a  navigantibus)  that  he  was 
living  and  in  perfect  health  in  Ireland,  sent  envoys  to 
Wilfrid,  then  bishop  in  the  north  of  England,  asking  him 
to  send  for  him  from  Scotland  and  Ireland  (de  Scottia 
et  Hibernia  ad  se  invitasset)  /  Wilfrid  consented  to  do 
this.  Dagobert  thereupon  set  out  from  Ireland  and  re- 
turned to  his  own  country,  where,  enriched  by  the  arms 
and  forces  of  his  companions,  he  occupied  the  throne. 
The  king,  remembering  his  obligation  to  Wilfrid,  offered 
him  when  visiting  on  his  way  to  Rome  the  largest  bish- 
opric in  his  realm,  namely,  that  of  Strassburg.  Arbogast, 
an  Irishman,  and  nineteenth  bishop  of  Strassburg,  is  said 
to  have  died  at  this  time,  i.  e.,  July  21,  679. 

1  This  is  apparently  the  first  instance  of  the  word  Scottia  beinff  used  In 
contrast  to  Hibernia.     It  may  be  a  later  corruption. 

57 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

Oswald,  king  of  Northumbria,  and  his  brother  Oswiu, 
received  their  education  in  Ireland  and  at  lona.  The 
two  young  men  became  proficient  in  the  Irish  tongue, 
Bede  tells  us:  "Oswiu  ....  illorum  etiam  lingua  optime 
imbutus."  Aldfrid,  too,  king  of  Northumbria,  the  son, 
according  to  some  accounts,  of  an  Irish  mother,  and  the 
friend  of  Adamnan  of  lona,  was  educated  also  in  Ireland, 
and  seems  to  have  spent  much  time  at  Mayo  of  the  Saxons, 
founded  by  Colman.  He  spoke  Irish  fluently,  like  his 
predecessor,  and  traveled  around  every  principality  in 
Ireland.  Very  interesting  is  the  poem  from  his  hand, 
which  has  survived  both  in  Gaelic  and  Latin,  in  the  light 
it  throws  on  the  Ireland  of  the  period,  and  in  which  the 
note  of  worship,  common  to  all  the  Anglo-Saxons  where 
Ireland  was  concerned,  is  almost  as  well  defined  as  in  the 
pages  of  Bede.  The  first  two  verses  follow  in  their  En- 
glish translation: 

I  found  in  Inisfail  the  Fair 
In  Ireland  while  in  exile  there 
Women  of  worth,  both  grave  and  gay  men 
Learned  clerics,  heroic  laymen. 

I  traveled  its  fruitful  provinces  round 
And  in  every  one  of  the  five  I  found 
Alike  in  church  and  in  palace  hall 
Abundant  apparel  and  food  for  all.  * 

Aldhelm,  abbot  of  Malmesbury,  dedicated  to  Aldfrid  a 
poetic  epistle  in  Latin  meter  in  which  he  congratulated 
the  king  on  his  good  fortune  in  having  been  educated  in 
Ireland.  Aldhelm's  own  master  was  the  Irish  Maeldubh 
or  Maelduf,  from  whom  the  city  of  Malmesbury  derives 
its  name. 

Clonard  and  Slane,  near  Tara,  seem  to  have  been  schools 

1  See  Dublin  Review,  XXI,  519. 

58 


Insula  Sanctorum  et  Doctorum 

favored  by  the  sons  of  Irish  monarchs  and  princes.  Thus 
we  read  in  the  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters  under  A.  D.  645 
that  Cathal,  second  son  of  Ragallach,  king  of  Connaught, 
then  a  student  at  Clonard,  with  a  party  of  twenty-seven 
of  his  fellow  students,  all  young  laymen  from  Connaught, 
sallied  forth  from  the  college  and  went  to  take  vengeance 
on  the  assassin  of  his  royal  father.  In  the  case  of  families 
of  the  highest  rank,  however,  such  as  those  of  the  high 
monarch  of  Ireland,  the  young  princes  were  generally 
educated  in  the  royal  household,  the  tutors  residing  at  the 
court. 

4.  Going  to  Ireland  for  Education  Long  Continued 

The  offspring  of  Irish  families  settled  in  Britain  and 
elsewhere  likewise  came  to  Ireland  in  great  numbers  to 
seek  an  education  in  the  liberal  arts.  From  Scotland  they 
of  course  came  in  a  continual  stream,  not  for  a  few  cen- 
turies but  right  up  to  the  sixteenth  century;  but  of  course 
Scotland  was  to  all  intents  and  purposes  an  Irish  province 
and  large  portions  of  it  remain  part  of  the  Gaedhaltacht 
to  this  day.  But  they  came  also  from  that  part  of  Britain 
now  denominated  Wales,  which  was  also  for  some  cen- 
turies an  Irish  colony,  as  will  be  later  made  plain,  and 
they  came  from  Brittany  in  France.  The  perpetual  va  et 
vient  that  went  on  between  Ireland  and  Wales  is  mir- 
rored in  the  lives  of  eminent  Welshmen  and  Irishmen 
of  the  early  medieval  age.  A  younger  Gildas,  born  of 
Irish  parents  in  Wales  and  flourishing  about  the  beginning 
of  the  ninth  century,  who  wrote  a  work  which  he  dedi- 
cated to  Rhabanus  Maurus  of  Fulda,  went  to  Ireland  to 
be  educated.  Marcus,  born  in  Britain  or  Brittany,  and 
later  bishop  of  Soissons,  where  he  was  preceptor  to  Eric 
of  Auxerre,  likewise  received  his  education  in  Ireland. 

59 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

He  may  be  identical  with  the  Irish  Marcus  who,  being 
on  his  way  to  Rome,  in  the  year  822  wrote  in  Italy  a 
history  of  Britain,  but  he  seems  to  have  been  a  younger 
man. 

In  the  life  of  Fridolin,  the  son  of  an  Irish  reigning 
prince,  who  established  the  foundation  of  Seckingen  on 
the  Rhine,  and  other  foundations  at  Helera  on  the 
Moselle,  Hiliaricum  near  the  Saar,  in  the  Vosges  Moun- 
tains and  in  other  parts  of  France  and  Switzerland, 
Ireland  is  represented  as  enjoying  an  extraordinary  abun- 
dance of  material  resources  and  of  secular  riches,  while 
the  wealthy  gave  with  liberal  hand  to  the  poor  and  be- 
stowed from  their  means  what  was  necessary  to  maintain 
schools  and  all  manner  of  useful  learning.  The  education 
received  by  Fridolin,  who  later  on  established  schools 
for  young  women  and  men  in  his  Rhine  and  other  founda- 
tions, is  reported  to  have  been  of  a  nature  suitable  to  the 
circumstances  of  his  parents  and  to  his  own  rank.  He 
pursued  with  success  the  study  of  profane  and  sacred 
literature  and  while  he  learned,  it  is  recorded,  the  specula- 
tions of  Pythagoras  and  of  Plato,  he  was  most  assiduous 
in  poring  over  the  pages  of  the  sacred  scriptures.  Allu- 
sions such  as  these,  found  in  profusion  in  the  lives  of 
medieval  Irishmen,  serve  to  present  an  exalted  impression 
of  the  classic  taste  and  acumen  possest  by  the  educated 
classes  in  Ireland.* 

This  going  to  school  in  Ireland  was  not  a  matter  of  one 
short  generation.  It  became  traditional  and  continuous. 
Thus  a  part  of  the  university  city  of  Armagh  became 
known  as  "Saxon  Armagh,"  and  likewise  part  of  Mayo 

1  See  vita  Fridolinl,  auctore  Balthero  monacho,  Mon.  Germ.  Hist.,  Script, 
rer.  Merovin^.  Ill,  351-65,  ed.  Kruscti;  Colgan,  Acta  S.  Hib.,  Louv.  1645,  I, 
481,  seq. ;  Mone,  Quellensammlung  der  badisclien  Landesgeschichte,  Karls. 
1845,  I;  Acta  SS.  Mar.,  I,  pp.  433-441. 

6o 


Insula  Sanctorum  et  Doctorum 

became  known  as  "Mayo  of  the  Saxons."  The  Danish  in- 
roads interrupted  the  stream  but  did  not  stop  it.  The 
rise  of  the  numerous  Irish  foundations  in  Britain  and 
on  the  Continent  naturally  served  to  make  the  long  journey 
to  Ireland  superfluous  and  diminished  the  volume  of 
those  who  resorted  thither.  But  the  attraction  of  Ireland 
as  the  university  of  the  West  long  remained  potent,  and 
foreign  students  were  found  In  Ireland  In  the  eleventh 
and  twelfth  centuries  as  well  as  In  the  sixth  and  seventh. 
Aldhelm's  petulant  outburst  In  the  seventh  century  over 
the  students  who  neglected  the  English  schools  and  flocked 
to  Ireland  Is  matched  by  parallel  testimony  In  the  eleventh 
century.  "Why  'does  Ireland,"  writes  Aldhelm  to  three 
English  students  just  returned  from  Ireland,  "pride  her- 
self on  a  sort  of  priority  In  that  such  numbers  of  students 
flock  there  from  England?"  On  the  other  hand  we  have 
the  biographer  of  Sulger  In  the  eleventh  century  telling 
us  how  he  went  to  Ireland  to  study  "after  the  fashion  of 
his  ancestors." 


5i 


CHAPTER  VI 

LAY  SCHOOLS  AND   SCHOOLS   OF  PHILOSOPHY 

I.  Professional  and  Lay  Education  in  Ireland.  2.  Synod  of  Drumceat, 
575  A.  D.  3.  Original  and  Independent  Culture,  4.  Columbanus  and 
Gregory — "Irish  Ancients  Who  Were  Philosophers." 

I.   Professional  and  Lay  Education  in  Ireland 

THE  evidence  that  has  been  adduced  will  give  an 
idea  of  the  number  of  laymen  attending  the  monas- 
tic universities  in  Ireland,  and  the  facts  are  plain 
that  Irishmen  holding  civil  and  military  positions  and 
having  no  clerical  or  monastic  status  w^ere  men  of  culti- 
vated intellect  and  gained  high  distinction  in  studies  that 
outside  of  Ireland  v^ere  regarded  as  the  special  preserve 
of  clerics.  The  idea  of  the  nobleman  or  soldier  or  mer- 
chant or  other  person  not  an  ecclesiastic  cultivating  letters 
v^as  almost  unknown  to  continental  Europe  in  the  Middle 
Ages  even  in  the  East.  But  it  was  an  idea  as  familiar 
to  the  Irish  as  to  the  Athenians  in  the  age  of  Pericles 
or  to  the  Romans  under  the  earliest  Caesars.  It  was 
an  idea,  not  imported  with  Greco-Roman  culture,  but 
indigenously  handed  down  from  the  pagan  era,  and  an 
idea  that  continued  to  gain  development  following  the 
Christianization  of  the  island. 

In  addition  therefore  to  the  larger  centers  of  learning 
on  which  the  indestructible  renown  of  Ireland  is  based 
as  the  medieval  home  of  saints  and  scholars  there  were 
the  more  distinctively  Irish  schools,  having  fewer  pupils, 
but  multiplied  all  over  the  island.  These  schools  were 
devoted  to  purely  secular  learning,  and  in  them  the  pas- 

62 


Lay   Schools   and   Schools   of   Philosophy 

sionate  attachment  of  the  Irish  people  to  their  language, 
their  literature,  their  laws,  the  preservation  of  their  his- 
tories and  genealogies,  the  development  of  their  art  and 
the  historic  elements  of  their  distinctive  civilization,  found 
full  expression.  To  read,  write  and  speak  in  its  fulness 
and  precision  the  Irish  language,  to  learn  Irish  grammar 
and  the  rules  of  poetical  composition,  to  master  geography 
and  history,  especially  the  geography  and  history  of 
Ireland,  and  to  acquire  a  knowledge  of  Irish  poetry  and  of 
the  Irish  epic  tales — such  was  the  curriculum  of  these  lay 
schools  in  so  far  as  they  aimed  at  a  liberal  or  professional 
education  in  the  field  of  Irish  studies.  There  were  schools 
of  the  brehons,  the  bards,  and  the  seanchaidhe  or  his- 
torians, there  were  schools  of  medicine,  and  schools  of  the 
military  art,  these  last  not  dissimilar  to  the  gymnasia  of 
Athens  where  Plato  and  Aristotle  first  taught.  These 
schools  of  the  seanchaidhe,  the  poets  and  the  bards  had 
a  curriculum  founded  on  the  teaching  transmitted  from 
the  Druids,  and  that  teaching  was  largely  confined  to  the 
Irish  studies  enumerated  above.  To  these  studies  the 
professional  schools  added  the  study  of  law,  of  medicine, 
or  of  the  military  art  as  the  case  might  be. 

The  ideal  of  secular  schools,  presided  over  by  lay  pro- 
fessors, and  attended  by  lay  students,  devoted  to  purely 
lay  and  professional  studies,  is  an  ideal  so  foreign  to  the 
spirit  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  particularly  to  the  spirit 
of  the  governors  of  the  Christian  church  in  the  early 
part  of  those  ages,  that  considerable  skepticism  appears 
quite  natural  in  respect  to  their  existence  in  Ireland.  But 
the  truth  is  that  the  proofs  bearing  on  the  activity  of 
these  schools  are  as  copious  and  convincing  as  in  the  case 
of  those  larger  Irish  establishments  the  intellectual  leaders 
of  which  were  honored  throughout  Christendom  and  in 

63 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

relation  to  the  age  in  which  they  lived  were  to  be  counted 
amongst  the  greatest  philosophers  and  preceptors  the 
world  has  known. 

Irish  records — annals,  tales,  and  treatises — contain 
numerous  references  to  these  Irish  lay  schools,  but  the 
old  Irish  law  tracts,  some  of  which  have  in  recent  years 
been  edited  and  published,^  furnish  us  with  information 
in  regard  to  them  more  precise  than  the  evidence  found  in 
any  other  source.  They  outline  the  duties  which  the  mas- 
ter owes  his  pupils,  and  the  return  which  the  pupils  owe 
the  master.  They  describe  the  proper  plan  and  arrange- 
ments of  the  schools,  their  different  divisions  and  locations. 
They  are  exceedingly  minute  in  describing  the  curriculum, 
the  number  of  years  proper  to  the  course  of  studies,  the 
studies  themselves,  the  varying  learned  degrees  and  the 
accomplishments  they  represent.  We  learn  for  example 
that  a  lay  college  comprised  three  distinct  establishments, 
housed  in  three  different  buildings,  grouped  according  to 
a  custom  that  came  down  from  pagan  times.  We  find 
references  to  the  college  libraries,  as  in  the  case  of  Dalian 
Forgaill  (sixth  century),  celebrated  as  the  contemporary 
and  elegist  of  Columcille,  who  in  the  Book  of  Leinster  is 
represented  as  saying:  "Among  the  schools  with  libraries 
(etir  scoluib  scripta)  thou  hast  read  the  mysteries  of  the 
Ro-sualt."' 

We  learn  that  the  master  owed  the  student  "instruction 
without  reservation  and  correction  without  harshness"  as 
well  as  gratuitous  maintenance,  if  too  poor  to  support 
himself.  This  hospitality  was  as  liberally  dispensed  to 
the  foreigner  as  to  the  Irish  themselves.  Thus  Bede  tells 
us,  as  before  noted,  that  a  great  many  of  the  higher  and 

1  Sequel  to  Crith  Gabhlach,  Brehon  Liaws  IV.  Also  Brehon  Laws  V,  27 
(Small  Primer)  and  II,  p.  18  seq.  See  Joyce's  Social  History,  Vol.  I,  Ch.  XI, 
p.  417  seq.,  where  details  and  references  are  copious. 

«Silva  Gadelica,  480.  ii;  527. 

64 


Lay   Schools  and  Schools  of   Philosophy 

lower  classes  of  the  English  lived  in  Ireland  in  his  day 
for  the  sake  of  study,  and  while  some  of  them  became 
monks,  others  preferred  to  give  themselves  over  to  getting 
an  education,  passing  from  one  professor's  house  to  another. 
These  foreigners,  Bede  adds,  were  cheerfully  received 
by  the  Irish,  who  provided  them  with  food  and  shelter, 
books  and  teaching,  without  payment  of  any  kind.^  Doubt- 
less most  of  these  Anglo-Saxon  students  pursued  their 
studies  in  the  monastic  colleges,  but  others  must  have 
studied  in  the  lay  schools  as  well.  They  would  all  carry 
a  knowledge  of  Irish  and  of  Irish  poetry  back  to  their 
own  country  and 'we  have  to  keep  facts  such  as  these  in 
mind  in  considering  the  early  sources  of  English  litera- 
ture. 

The  masters,  according  to  the  old  Irish  law  tracts,  were 
also  answerable  for  the  misdeeds  of  the  students,  except 
in  one  case  only,  namely,  when  the  scholar  was  a  foreigner 
and  paid  for  his  food  and  education.  The  degrees  of 
wisdom  were  given  in  the  lay  schools  as  in  the  monastic 
schools,  and  the  laws  describe  these  learned  degrees 
minutely,  giving  the  Irish  name  of  each,  and  the  number 
of  years  of  study  required  to  attain  them.  Thus  the 
highest  degree  in  poetry,  as  in  other  branches  of  study, 
was  the  ollamh  (oUave),  and  then  after  one  another, 
according  to  their  rank,  came  the  Cli,  the  Cana,  the  Doss, 
the  MacFuirmeadh,  and  the  Forloc.  The  students  pur- 
sued their  learning  for  twelve  years  or  perhaps  more.  At 
last  when  a  poet  graduated  as  an  ollamh  he  knew  350  kinds 
of  versification  and  was  able  to  repeat  250  prime  stories 
and  a  hundred  stories  of  the  second  rank.  We  still  have 
the  remains  of  the  books  from  which  the  poets  drew  their 
knowledge.^ 

1  Ec.  Hist.,  Book  III,  XXVII. 

2  Book  of  Ballymote,  H.  2.12,  a  parchment  MS.  in  Trinity  College,  Dublin. 
See  Hyde,  MacTernan  Prize  Essays  II,   Irish  Poetry,  p.   65. 

65 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of   Britain 

2.   Synod  of  Drumceat,  575  A.  D. 

As  students  in  Ireland,  both  Irish  and  foreign,  who 
so  desired,  were  not  only  taught  but  supported  gratui- 
tously, their  numbers  became  in  time  so  burdensome  to 
the  country — that  legislation  on  the  subject  was  found 
necessary  as  early  as  the  imperial  parliament  and  synod  of 
Drumceat,  A.  D.  575.  At  this  celebrated  parliament,  to 
attend  which  Columcille  and  King  Aidan  voyaged  with 
numerous  retinues  from  Scotland,  lands  were  formally  set 
apart  for  the  endowment  of  some  of  the  educational  estab- 
lishments, which  survived  as  public  institutions  down  to 
the  English  destructions  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

The  secular  education  of  Ireland  was  reorganized  by 
this  parliament  which  erected  a  chief  bardic  seminary 
or  college  for  each  of  the  five  kingdoms,  and  under  each 
of  these  mother  establishments  a  group  of  minor  schools, 
one  in  each  tuath  or  cantred,  all  liberally  endowed.  The 
heads  of  these  schools  were  ollaves  of  poetry  and  litera- 
ture and  were  all  laymen/  The  curriculum  included  law, 
history,  antiquities,  poetry,  and  other  Irish  studies  and, 
as  the  arts  and  professions  in  Ireland  were  largely  heredi- 
tary, these  schools  were  often  presided  over  by  members 
of  the  same  family  for  generations.** 

At  this  same  parliament,  over  which  the  High  Monarch 
presided,*  the  Bardic  Order  in  Ireland  was  largely 
deprived  of  its  extraordinary  privileges  and  wealth, 
which  had  begun  to  make  it  a  burden  to  the  peo- 
ple.   At  this  time,  Keating  tells  us,  nearly  a  third  of  the 

1 0'Curry,  Manners  and  Customs,  I,  78. 

2  See,  for  example,  Hy  Fiachrach,  79  and  167,  bottom;  Keating,  Hist.  455. 

3  Numerous  other  measures,  including  a  grant  of  self  determination  to 
the  Irish  kingdom  of  Scotland,  were  enacted  at  Drumceat.  Following  the  fall 
of  Temhair  or  Tara,  as  the  legislative  capital  of  Ireland,  the  Irish  par- 
liaments held  their  sessions  at  various  centers,  such  as  Usnach,  Tailtenn,  and 
Drumceat. 

66 


Lay  Schools  and  Schools  of   Philosophy 

men  of  Erin  belonged  to  the  poetic  order,  but  the  parlia- 
ment reduced  the  numbers,  allowing  only  to  each 
provincial  prince  and  to  each  lord  of  a  cantred  one  regis- 
tered ollave  or  professor.  On  these  ollaves  it  was  or- 
dained that  their  patrons  should  settle  an  hereditary 
revenue/ 

Despite  restrictions  the  literary  profession  continued  to 
enjoy  great  wealth.  Some  idea  of  the  style  of  living  of 
the  learned  professions  may  be  gathered  from  the  income 
enjoyed  by  the  literati  of  Tir  Conaill  (present  county 
Donegal).  It  has  been  computed  that  no  less  than  the 
amount  represented  by  two  thousand  pounds  sterling  or 
ten  thousand  dollars  was  set  aside  annually  in  this  small 
state  for  the  maintenance  of  the  class. 

It  has  been  ascertained  from  the  public  legal  records 
that  the  rental  of  the  landed  properties  of  several  of  these 
professors  of  literature  would  at  the  present  day  amount 
to  upwards  of  four  or  five  hundred  pounds  sterling  or  two 
thousand  five  hundred  dollars  annually,  besides  the 
guerdons  they  received  from  the  ruling  sovereigns  and 
princes.  Many  of  them  are  stated  to  have  maintained 
three  or  four  schools  on  their  estates,  at  which  pupils  were 
boarded  and  educated  gratuitously.^  The  Irish  Triads 
mention  as  the  "three  coffers  whose  depth  is  not  known" 
— "the  coffers  of  a  chieftain,  of  the  church,  of  the  privi- 
leged poet." 

3.  Original  and  Independent  Culture 

The  light  thus  shed  on  the  prosecution  of  the  ordinary 
studies  of  the  schools,  on  the  cultivation  and  transmission 
of  the  liberal  arts,  on  the  devotion  to  music  and  poetry 
and  history  and  literature  and  the  concomitant  depart- 

1  See  Trans.  Ossianic  Society,  Vol.  V,  xxxi. 

2  See  Trans.  Ossianic  Society,  Vol.  V,  xxii. 

^7 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

ments  of  learning,  will  therefore  be  admitted  as  not  lack- 
ing in  clearness.  But  is  there  any  evidence  that  the  Irish 
intellectuals  went  further  than  this?  Did  their  studies 
ever  soar  above  the  mechanical  tradition  of  Bede  and 
Rhabanus  Maur  in  the  West  or  of  Choeroboscus  and 
Photius  in  the  East?  Did  they,  like  them,  merely  learn 
by  rote  what  had  been  handed  down  to  them  by  Greek  and 
Roman  teachers  and  pass  it  on  to  newer  generations?  Is 
there  any  evidence  of  an  Irish  independent  culture,  of 
a  self-sustaining  mental  cultivation,  of  a  development 
and  expansion  of  knowledge,  of  any  addition  of  learning, 
and  of  the  employment  of  the  varied  powers  of  the  mind 
in  the  investigation  of  new  fields  of  thought,  and  the  fer- 
tilization of  new  ideas?  It  would  indeed  be  remarkable 
that  an  Ireland  capable  of  improvising  the  habitations 
and  paraphernalia  of  knowledge  as  no  other  land  was 
able  to  improvise  them  and  of  maintaining  its  educational 
organizations  through  periods  of  time  of  which  no  other 
people  before  them  could  show  a  like  record,  should  not 
have  added  to  the  stores  of  knowledge  represented  by 
Greco-Roman  and  Christian  learning. 

Undoubtedly  Ireland  so  added.  But  we  must  remem- 
ber that  Ireland's  main  energies  were  directed  along  two 
important  channels — namely,  the  preservation  and  devel- 
opment of  her  own  immemorial  culture  and  civilization, 
as  distinct  and  unique  as  the  civilization  of  Greece  or 
Egypt,  and  the  transmission  to  the  newer  peoples  of 
Europe  of  Greco-Roman  learning  transfused  by  the  doc- 
trines of  Christianity.  Her  devotion  to  her  own  culture 
has  enriched  the  world  with  an  heroic  literature  even  in 
its  fragments  inferior  only  to  the  Grecian,  and  the  example 
of  that  devotion  probably  preserved  to  the  world  such 
monuments  of  early  literature  as  at  this  day  belong  to 

68 


Lay  Schools  and  Schools  of  Philosophy 

England,  to  Germany,  and  to  Scandinavia.  Had  Irish 
influence  in  the  young  ages  of  her  faith  been  directed  to 
the  destruction  of  pagan  literature  and  art,  as  it  was  di- 
rected in  some  other  lands,  the  early  literature  of  Ireland 
as  of  these  other  countries  might  have  been  lost  to  the 
world  forever.  But  it  was  not  so  directed,  and  indeed 
it  was  in  those  very  ages  of  faith,  when  Christian  enthu- 
siasm flamed  throughout  the  island,  that  the  Irish  epics, 
having  received  their  shaping  in  the  mouths  and  minds 
of  the  people  through  unnumbered  generations,  were  first 
committed  to  writing  and  to  literary  recension. 

As  to  Ireland's  cultivation  of  philosophy  the  great  name 
of  Johannes  Scotus  Eriugena  constitutes  a  sufficient  an- 
swer. His  works  have  been  preserved  to  us  because  they 
existed  on  the  Continent.  The  works  of  the  schools  of 
thought  he  represented  have  been  destroyed  because  those 
works  remained  in  Ireland.  Of  the  Irish  philosophers 
and  the  Irish  schools  of  philosophy  contemporary  with 
him  he  speaks  indeed  in  a  manner  reminiscent  of  the 
interlocutions  to  which  we  are  accustomed  in  the  dialogs 
of  Plato,  and  indeed  it  is  on  the  strength  of  his  verbal 
modes  and  his  knowledge  of  Greek  that  the  false  tradition 
of  his  having  been  a  student  in  Athens  was  built  up.  "I 
quitted,"  says  he,  speaking  of  his  youth  in  Ireland,  "no 
place  or  temple  where  the  philosophers  were  accustomed 
to  compose  or  deposit  their  secret  works  without  in- 
specting it;  and  there  was  not  one  amongst  such  scholars, 
as  might  be  supposed  to  possess  any  knowledge  of  philo- 
sophical writings,  whom  I  did  not  question."* 

We  can  compute  the  strength  and  originality  of  a 
Johannes  Scotus  Eriugena  and  his  circle  and  the  specu- 
lative activity  of  the  schools  that  produced  him  by  re- 

1  Wood's  Hist,  and  Antiquit,  Univers.  Oxon.  in  fol.  1674,  Vol.  I,  p.  15. 

69 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of  Britain 

calling  that  the  Byzantines  with  all  the  accumulations 
of  Greek  learning  at  their  command  were  unable  to 
produce  anyone  like  him.  Photius,  the  contemporary  of 
Eriugena,  and  like  him  a  tutor  to  emperors,  despite  his 
many-sided  erudition  and  devotion  to  Aristotelian  studies, 
which  illumined  a  Constantinopolitan  age  of  darkness 
paralleling  the  age  of  iron,  of  lead  and  of  gloom 
(saeculum  ....  ferreum  ....  plumbeum  ....  obscurum) 
in  the  West,  is  more  easily  comparable  to  Rhabanus 
Maur  or  Servatus  Lupus  than  to  Eriugena.  Even  Psellus, 
whose  very  profession  was  philosophy  and  who  revived 
the  study  of  Plato  as  far  as  Arabia  and  the  distant  East, 
is  dwarfed  to  the  dimensions  of  a  mere  pedagog  when 
tested  by  the  standards  of  the  mighty  Irishman,  who,  in 
an  age  hopelessly  bridled  by  authority  and  tradition, 
worked  out  a  theory  of  the  universe  in  the  untrammeled 
spirit  of  Augustine  and  the  noblest  of  the  ancients  un- 
known in  that  age  save  in  the  Irish  schools. 

4..  columbanus  and  gregory— "irish  ancients  who 
Were  Philosophers" 

Johannes  Scotus  Eriugena  wrote  late  in  the  ninth  cen- 
tury, but  "philosophus"  had  become  almost  as  synony- 
mous as  "peregrinus"  for  the  Scotus  or  Irishman  at  a 
much  earlier  date.  Midway  in  the  sixth  century  when 
Columbanus  was  a  youth  we  find  the  scientists  of  the 
Irish  schools  rating  themselves  as  very  much  superior 
to  those  of  Gaul  or  Italy.  Thus  Columbanus  in  one 
of  the  letters  to  Gregory,  written  at  Luxeuil,  tells  the 
pope  that  the  Irish  astronomers  and  computists  held  in 
very  low  esteem  Victorius  of  Aquitaine,  whose  cycle, 
drawn  up  in  497  A.  D.,  had  been  adopted  in  the  Galilean 
and  other  churches.    "For  know  thou"  he  says  writing 

70 


Lay  Schools  and   Schools  of   Philosophy 

c.  598  A.  D.,  "that  by  our  masters  and  the  Irish  ancients, 
who  were  philosophers  and  most  wise  computists  in  con- 
structing calculations,  Victorius  was  not  received,  but  held 
more  worthy  of  ridicule  or  of  excuse  than  as  carrying 
authority."^ 

In  this  letter  to  Gregory,  as  elsewhere,  the  extraordinary 
self-assurance  of  the  Irish  schoolmen,  which  was  so  long 
to  exercise  the  popes  and  the  religious  world  of  Europe 
generally,  breaks  out  thus  early  despite  the  overflowing 
affection  and  reverence  manifestly  cherished  by  the  won- 
derful old  monk  for  the  chair  of  Peter.  With  all  the 
consciousness  of  a  superior  culture  he  tells  the  great  pope, 
who  was  little  accustomed  to  counsel  so  imperiously  given, 
what  would  be  the  Irish  attitude  if  Irish  opinion  on 
Easter  observance  was  not  endorsed  by  him:  "For  I 
frankly  acknowledge  to  thee  that  anyone  who  goes  against 
the  authority  of  Saint  Hieronymus  will  be  repudiated  as 
a  heretic  among  the  churches  of  the  West;  for  they  ac- 
commodate their  faith  in  all  respects  unhesitatingly  to 
him  with  regard  to  the  Divine  Scriptures."  And  he  adds, 
"And  if,  as  I  have  heard  from  thy  holy  Candidus,''  thou 
shouldst  be  disposed  to  say  in  reply  that  things  confirmed 
by  ancient  usage  cannot  be  changed,  error  is  manifestly 
ancient,  but  truth  which  reproves  it  is  ever  more  ancient 
still."  To  Haureau  the  Latin  poems  of  Columbanus 
"read  like  the  works  of  an  entire  pagan"  while  his  monas- 
tic rule  "appears  to  have  been  composed  by  a  league  of 
philosophers."^ 

1st.  Col.  to  Greg.  Epist.  CXXVII,  Bk.  IX  Registrum  Epistolarum,  C.  598-9; 
also  in  Collectanea  Sacra,  Fleming;  and  Migne,  Pat.  Lat.,  LXXVII,  1061- 
6  LXXX,  263. 

2  Candidas  was  Pope  Gregory's  representative  traveling  in  Gaul.  He  ap- 
pears to  have  spent  some  time  at  the  foundation  of  Columbanus  at  Luxeuil, 
as  appear  from  their  own  words.  Augustine  and  the  other  missionaries  sent 
to  England  also  stayed  at  Luxeuil.  Columbanus  and  his  Irish  colleagues,  who 
spent  some  time  in  England  trying  to  reclaim  the  natives,  appear  not  to  have 
minimized  the  bad  reputation  of  the  Islanders  in  the  mind  of  Augustine. 

3  Singularit€s,  chap.  1. 

71 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of  Britain 

Columbanus  (543-615)  in  Ireland  and  Gaul  was  the 
contemporary  of  Cassiodorus  (490-585)  in  Ravenna  and 
Squillace.  Cassiodorus,  who  showed  a  twofold  devotion 
to  the  Christian  and  heathen  classics,  peculiar  in  that 
age  to  Irish  scholars  almost  alone,  was  the  contemporary 
in  the  East  of  the  Emperor  Justinian  and  of  Priscian,  and 
in  the  West  of  Odoacer,  successor  to  Romulus  Augustus, 
the  last  Roman  emperor,  and  Boethius — "the  last  of  the 
Romans  whom  Cato  or  TuUy  could  have  acknowledged 
for  their  countrymen."^  Boethius  and  Cassiodorus  were 
the  final  representatives  of  Roman  learning  as  Colum- 
banus was  one  of  the  first  representatives  of  Irish  learning 
in  Gaul  and  Italy.^  Thus  the  affiliation  of  Irish  culture 
with  the  ancient  Greek  and  Roman  cultures  is  as  visible 
and  authentic  as  the  position,  revealed  by  Zeuss,  of  the 
Irish  language  in  the  inner  shrine  of  the  Indo-European 
group  as  sister  to  Latin  and  Greek.  The  Teutonic  wedge 
of  barbarism,  thrust  in  the  fifth  century  into  a  triple  asso- 
ciation that  had  been  maturing  for  centuries,  while  it 
seriously  impaired,  did  not  destroy  the  continuity  in  the 
tradition  of  civilization. 

1  Gibbon,  Bury's,  IV,  197-204,  C.  395. 

a  The  activity  of  the  continental  Celt  in  Roman  literature  began  early. 
Virgil  was  a  native  of  Gallia  Cisalpina — his  name  is  cognate  with  the  Irish 
Pearghil,  anglicized  P'arrell.  Livy,  Catullus,  Cornelius  Nepos,  the  elder  and 
younger  Pliny,  Domitius  Afer,  Marcus  Aper,  Favorinus,  Ausonius,  Numan- 
tlanus,  Sulpicius  Severus,  Sidonius  Appollinarius  were  other  Gauls  or  Celts 
who  attained  fame  in  Latin  letters.  The  Celts  also  gave  Rome  several  of  its 
emperors — Claudius,  Caracalla,  Antoninus,  Galba,  Otto,  Vitellus,  Vespasian, 
Domitian,  and  Maximus,  this  last  a  Briton.  The  Celtic  tongue  died  out  in 
Gaul  in  the  fourth  century,  but  St.  Jerome  Intimates  that  the  Galatians  in  Asia 
Minor  BtlU  spoke  it  in  his  day:  "While  the  Galatians  in  common  with  the 
whole  East  speak  Greek,  their  own  language  is  almost  identical  with  that 
of  the  Trevlri."    (Pref.  Book  II,  Comment,  on  Galatians.) 


72 


CHAPTER  VII 

TRANSMITTING    THE    TREASURES    OF 
ANCIENT    LEARNING 

I.  High  Culture  of  Ireland  a  Living  Reality.  2.  Destruction  of  Irish 
Libraries.  3.  Irish  Genealogy  of  Carolingian  Schools.  4.  Organiz- 
ing the  City  and  Christian  Society. 

I.   High  Culture  of  Ireland  a  Living  Reality 

WE  have  thus  brought  up  before  our  eyes  an  Ireland 
whose  authentic  right  to  the  varied  titles  tradi- 
tionally bestowed  upon  her  as  the  hearthstone  of 
civilization,  the  school  of  the  West,  and  the  habitation 
of  learning,  is  based  on  a  living  reality  and  not  on  an 
idle  dream.  There  was  hardly  a  city  or  clan  in  Ireland 
that  had  not  its  schools.  There  was  hardly  a  valley,  a 
hill,  or  an  isle  that  did  not  resound  to  the  voices  of  teacher 
and  student.  And  all  this  ardor  of  learning,  this  ever- 
lasting contest  of  mind  with  mind,  this  endless  catechizing 
and  philosophizing  and  multiplication  of  books  and  suc- 
cession of  dynasties  of  hereditary  teachers  and  of  school 
on  school  was  peculiar  and  unique  to  Ireland  alone,  save 
where  Irishmen  sought  to  reconstruct  abroad  and  gradu- 
ally succeeded  in  there  reconstructing  the  intellectual 
life  and  world  they  had  known  at  home.  To  the  Irish 
in  the  West  and  the  Byzantines  in  the  East  had  Fate  thus 
committed  as  trustees  that  Greco-Roman  civilization  in 
which  had  been  summed  up  the  heritage  of  all  preceding 
ages. 

It  is  a  circumstance  eloquent  of  the  destructions  that 
have  been  the  rule  in  Ireland  in  modern  times  that  of 

73 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of  Britain 

the  varied  mass  of  literature  produced  by  her  when  her 
intellectual  supremacy  wielded  undisputed  sway  and  her 
writers  were  most  prolific  the  merest  fragments  have  been 
preserved  in  Ireland  itself.  A  few  examples  of  the  Gos- 
pels in  Latin,  their  unearthly  beauty  a  slender  passport 
to  posterity,  still  remain  to  us  from  that  age.  One  of 
them,  the  Book  of  Armagh,  has  continuous  narratives  in 
the  Irish  of  the  period,  and  others,  like  the  Book  of  Deir, 
have  Irish  interlinear  and  marginal  notes.  But  of  the 
Irish  literature  dating  from  the  sixth  or  seventh  to  the 
eleventh  century  the  total  is  scanty  in  Ireland.  Even 
the  later  monuments,  the  Book  of  the  Dun  Cow,  the  Book 
of  Leinster  and  the  others,  were,  like  the  Ardagh  Chalice 
and  the  Tara  Brooch,  only  saved  by  first  being  lost.  These 
encyclopedic  vellums  contain  many  copies  of  works  be- 
longing to  an  earlier  age,  but  we  have  to  go,  not  to  Ireland 
itself,  but  to  the  Continent  for  the  earlier  authentic  litera- 
ture in  Irish  and  Latin  produced  in  Ireland  or  abroad 
in  the  medieval  period  prior  to  the  eleventh  century. 

The  Irish  libraries  abroad,  St.  Gall,  Rebais,  Bobbio  and 
others,  almost  all  founded  in  the  seventh  century,  proved 
the  great  treasure  houses  of  the  Roman  classics.  In 
Ireland  itself  the  mother  libraries  of  St.  Gall,  Rebais 
and  Bobbio,  went  down  in  the  common  ruin  of  Irish 
civilization.  On  the  Continent  the  Lombard  and  the  Hun 
showed  themselves  less  destructive  than  the  Tudor  and 
Cromwellian  Englishman  in  Ireland.  Eighty-one  years 
before  the  English  reformers  sent  by  Henry  VIII  began 
the  first  war  of  conquest  on  Ireland  that  was  to  have  a 
measure  of  success,*  Constantinople  fell  before  the  Turk. 

1  The  so-called  "Norman  Invasion"  or  "Conquest"  of  Ireland  was  in  reality 
an  emigration  from  Britain  of  Norman,  French,  Cambro-French,  Flemish — 
all  French-speaking: — who  began  to  become  Irish  as  soon  as  they  landed, 
tho  a  foreign  colony  or  pale  containing  newcomers  existed  on  the  coast.  This 
also  tended  to  disappear. 

74 


Transmitting   Treasures    of   Ancient    Learning 

But  the  Turk  showed  himself  no  Vandal  in  respect  to 
the  Greek  manuscripts  of  the  Byzantine  cities,  which 
must  have  been  anathema  to  him.  He  sold  them  by  the 
cartload;  he  did  not  deliberately  destroy  them.  But  the 
tradition  of  destruction  which  the  Englishmen  carried 
with  him  to  Ireland  embraced  everything  except  what 
was  capable  of  being  turned  to  the  use  of  the  English- 
man himself.  The  libraries  attached  to  the  great  monastic 
universities  we  know  were  very  large.  Their  contents 
were  in  the  main  in  Irish  and  in  Latin.  There  may 
have  been  a  goodly  number  of  Greek  manuscripts  also, 
for  the  evidence  is  that  the  Irish  scholars  were  in  posses- 
sion of  Greek  works  unknown  on  the  Continent,  for  exam- 
ple, theTimasus  of  Plato,  their  quotations  from  which  are 
independent  of  the  translation  of  Chalcidius. 

The  testimony  is  that  the  Irish  were  in  possession  of 
Latin  manuscripts  that  did  not  otherwise  exist  out  of 
Ireland.  The  Irish  colony  of  literati  in  Liege  in  the 
time  of  the  Emperor  Lothair  II  were  in  possession  for 
example  of  the  In  Pisonem  of  Cicero,  a  work  of  which 
only  one  other  copy  existed  on  the  Continent.  The  oldest 
Horace  is  an  Irish  manuscript  now  at  Berne.  The  oldest 
Ovid  is  a  Cambro-Irish  manuscript  now  at  Cambridge. 
The  oldest  manuscript  in  Switzerland,  which  is  an  em- 
porium of  ancient  manuscripts,  is  not  a  Roman  or  a  Greek 
manuscript,  but  an  Irish  manuscript.  It  is  a  biography 
of  a  sixth  century  Irishman,  written  in  Latin  by  a  seventh 
century  Irishman,  and  transcribed  by  an  eighth  century 
Irishman.  It  is  certain  that  of  the  628  Latin  authors 
whose  works  have  been  totally  lost,  and  that  of  the  107 
more  Latin  authors  whose  works  only  partially  survive, 
many  examples  must  have  existed  in  the  medieval  Irish 
libraries.     We  have  the  testimony  of  Alcuin  as  to  the 

75 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

number  of  books  in  the  library  of  York  in  his  day.  If  a 
library  so  much  superior  to  any  on  the  Continent  could 
have  been  gathered  together  in  England  with  its  ever 
insurgent  barbarism  which  swept  schools  and  libraries 
away  in  a  night  we  can  well  imagine,  apart  from  the  evi- 
dence, how  wealthy  and  numerous  must  have  been  the 
libraries  in  Ireland  where  the  great  academies  grew  in 
maturity  from  age  to  age  in  the  midst  of  an  ever-develop- 
ing national  civilization. 

Ludwig  Traube  draws  attention  to  the  numerous  hand 
libraries  which  the  Irish  schoolmen  carried  with  them 
to  the  Continent  and  points  to  the  probability  that  Sedulius 
Scotus,  in  making  his  remarkable  collection  of  excerpts 
from  the  Roman  classics  in  the  manuscript  originally 
owned  by  Nicolaus  von  Cues,  used  manuscripts  written 
in  Ireland,  since  many  of  these  ancient  works  were  un- 
known on  the  Continent.  His  copy  of  the  De  Re  Militari 
of  Vegetlus  was  procured  by  him  on  the  Continent,  but 
he  also  quotes  from  almost  unknown  works  of  Cicero, 
Lactantius,  Valerius,  and  numerous  other  authors.  While 
it  appears  that  Sedulius  made  excerpts  from  some  of  the 
manuscripts  In  Liege,  it  appears  also  likely  that  other 
excerpts  were  made  by  him  as  a  student  in  the  course  of 
his  reading  in  his  alma  mater  in  Ireland.^ 

2.   Destruction  of  Irish  Libraries 

But  it  was,  says  Webb,  "the  object  of  the  English  gov- 
ernment to  discover  and  destroy  all  remains  of  the  litera- 
ture of  the  Irish  in  order  more  fully  to  eradicate  from 
their  minds  every  trace  of  their  ancient  independence." 
The  men  whom  the  English  government  sent  on  their  mis- 
sion of  destruction  and  dispossession  to  Ireland  in  the 

IKI.  Bay.  Akad.,  Abhandl.,  1891,  p.  366. 

76 


Transmitting   Treasures   of   Ancient    Learning 

sixteenth  century  were  no  more  educated  men  than  the 
men  she  sent  in  the  nineteenth  and  sends  in  the  twentieth. 
It  is  not  likely  that  in  days  when  not  one  Englishman 
in  a  hundred  could  read  or  write  that  these  emissaries 
of  barbarism  would  be  able  to  discriminate  between  an 
Irish  and  a  Latin  manuscript.  To  them  they  were  both 
Greek.  Unlike  *'ye  sinfulle  jewelles"  they  were  not  car- 
ried away  or  transmuted,  but  blindly  destroyed.  Had  the 
Irish  manuscripts,  the  Hiberno-Latin  and  the  Hiberno- 
Greek  manuscripts,  now  peacefully  reposing  in  Switzer- 
land and  elsewhere,  had  the  libraries  of  Bobbio,  Rebais, 
Fleury  and  St.  Gall,  been  in  Ireland,  to-day  hardly 
a  vestige  of  them  would  remain.  Had  Johannes  Scotus 
Eriugena,  the  greatest  thinker  in  the  West  or  East  from 
Augustine  to  Aquinas,  written  his  books  at  home  in 
Ireland,  they  would  have  been  destroyed  and  we  would 
never  have  known  of  his  existence.  We  can  measure  the 
loss  to  civilization  now;  we  could  not  have  measured  it 
then.  The  psalm-singing  Englishman  has  been  able  to 
give  the  heathen  Vandal  lessons  in  vandalism. 

For  these  reasons  the  work  of  the  people  of  Ireland  in 
the  medieval  age  cannot  be  judged  by  the  standards  in 
respect  to  number  andiquality  of  existing  monuments  as 
in  other  lands.  In  no  other  land  has  there  been  a  foreign 
government  established  in  power  interested  in  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  memorials  and  monuments  of  the  national 
civilization.  The  Romans  when  they  conquered  Greece 
did  not  destroy  Greek  architecture  or  Greek  literature. 
But  the  English  in  Ireland  decided  that  the  spoliation 
and  abasement  of  the  Irish  nation  was  a  necessary  condi- 
tion of  their  own  aggrandizement.  We  have  to  realize 
therefore  that  the  literary  monuments  that  have  come 
down  to  us  from  medieval  Ireland,  noble  and  interesting 

17 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

as  they  are,  form  but  a  very  small  fraction  of  what  existed 
even  as  late  as  the  sixteenth  century.  What  remains  is 
merely  what  escaped  destroyers  bent  on  the  destruction 
of  everything.  If  for  example  it  is  remarked  that  Irish 
manuscripts  in  Latin  of  the  ninth  century  are  numerous, 
while  Irish  manuscripts  in  Latin  of  the  tenth  century  are 
rare,  it  does  not  follow  that  there  were  not  a  large  number 
of  Irishmen  writing  in  Latin  in  the  tenth  as  well  as  in 
the  ninth  century.  It  only  follows  that  of  the  ninth  cen- 
tury manuscripts  more  escaped  the  destroyer  than  of  the 
tenth  century  manuscripts.  If  it  is  remarked  that  despite 
the  medieval  Irish  knowledge  of  Greek  the  documentary 
evidences  of  that  knowledge  should  be  more  conspicuous 
on  the  Continent  than  in  Ireland,  it  does  not  followthatthe 
Irish  abroad  were  better  Greek  scholars  than  Irishmen 
in  Ireland,  it  only  follows  that  the  Hiberno-Greek  manu- 
scripts abroad  escaped  the  destruction  to  which  they  would 
have  been  doomed  in  Ireland.  If  it  is  a  matter  for  com- 
ment that  the  Anglo-Saxons,  despite  their  continued  bar- 
barism, produced  an  ecclesiastical  historian  like  Bede, 
while  the  Irish,  despite  their  superior  and  sustained  cul- 
ture, did  not,  it  does  not  follow  that  there  were  not  Irish 
ecclesiastical  historians.  That  there  were  not  such  ap- 
pears in  the  highest  degree  improbable.^  We  only  know 
that  whether  one  Irish  Bede  or  more  existed  the  proba- 
bilities are  that  his  works  would  have  been  destroyed. 
The  literary  monuments  that  escaped  the  Danes  In  Ireland 
were  later  destroyed  by  the  English  in  so  far  as  they 
were  able  to  discover  them.  We  have  historical  narratives 
in  Ireland  belonging  both  to  the  seventh  and  eighth  cen- 

lAdamnan  (624-703)  is  said  to  have  written  an  historia  Hibernorum  ab 
origine  ad  sua  tempora,  mentioned  by  Ward,  Vita  Rumoldi,  p.  218,  Lovan, 
1662.  Tliere  were  numerous  other  Icinds  of  histories.  In  the  "Annals  of 
Ulster"  we  read  at  the  year  439,  "Chronicon  magnum  scriptum  est";  at  467. 
"sic  in  libro  Cuanach  inveni";  at  482,  "ut  Cuana  scripsit";  at  507,  "Secundum 
librum  Mochod." 

78 


Transmitting   Treasures    of   Ancient    Learning 

turies.    They  are  fragments  representing  a  large  historical 
literature  that  has  perished.^ 

3.  Irish  Genealogy  of  Carolingian  Schools 

We  shall  see  as  we  proceed  in  what  manner  and  by  what 
methods  the  medieval  Irish  trustees  of  civilization  trans- 
mitted to  the  newer  races  the  treasure  in  their  keeping. 
But  already  one  of  the  paths  of  that  transmission  lies  open 
before  us.  Speculation  has  been  rife  as  to  the  source  from 
which  Charlemagne  and  his  contemporaries  drew  their 
inspiration  in  the  establishment  of  the  cathedral  and 
monastic  schools  of  their  time.  The  speculation  has  in- 
variably ended  in  a  blind  alley,  for  the  average  historian, 
knowing  little  of  Ireland  and  her  civilization,  and  seeking 
for  his  phenomena  an  ancestry  in  the  easily  accessible 
where  no  ancestry  existed,  has  been  content  to  construct 
a  genealogy  with  its  medieval  generations  dubious  or 
missing.  Yet  the  maternal  relation  of  Ireland  to  the  epis- 
copal schools  and  seminaries  of  the  Carolingian  era  is 
plainly  as  authentic  as  her  relation  of  maternity  to  the 
men  who  conducted  them.  Whether  all  these  men  were 
Irish  or  not  does  not  affect  that  relation.  They  were  al- 
most all  Irish  in  any  case,  and  such  of  them  as  were  not, 
like  Alcuin  and  Rhabanus  Maur,  were  representatives  of 
Irish  learning. 

We  know  that  in  the  Carolingian  era  Irish  scholars 
swamped  Gaul  and  Germany  and  Italy.  For  over  the 
two  preceding  centuries  they  had  been  sounding  in  Euro- 
pean lands  the  evangel  of  a  higher  intellectual  life.  No 
thinker  of  the  time  could  escape  their  influence  and  the 

1  "The  books  of  saga,  poetry  and  annals  that  have  come  down  to  our  day, 
though  so  vastly  more  ancient  and  numerous  than  anything  the  rest  of  west- 
ern Europe  has  to  show,  are  yet  an  almost  inappreciable  fragment  of  the 
literature  that  at  one  time  existed  in  Ireland":  (Hyde,  Literary  History  of 
Ireland.  263). 

79 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

effects  of  their  work,  and  whether  the  personages  were 
monarchs  like  Charlemagne,  who  was  their  life-long  ad- 
mirer, or  were  like  Theodulph  of  Orleans,  who  was  in 
constant  conflict  with  them,  or  the  monks  of  St.  Gall,  who 
associated  with  and  were  directed  by  them,  or  the  bishops 
of  France  and  Germany,  who  were  incessantly  investi- 
gating them  in  council,  or  the  popes  in  Rome,  who  got  all 
sorts  of  reports  about  them,  to  these  Irishmen  and  to  none 
other  could  they  look  as  intellectual  leaders  and  advisers. 
It  was  while  the  Irish  Ferghil  was  bishop  of  Salzburg, 
defending  against  less  informed  theologians  his  theory 
of  the  rotundity  of  the  earth  and  the  existence  of  the 
Antipodes,  that  the  Council  of  Bavaria  in  774  issued  its 
first  pronouncement  on  the  establishment  of  schools.  It 
was  while  Theodulph  of  Orleans  was  smarting  under  the 
rapier-like  thrusts  of  the  Irishmen  at  the  court  of 
Charlemagne  of  whose  culture  he  gave  voice  to  an  envy 
less  unsophisticated  than  Aldhelm's,  that  he  issued  his 
capitularies  for  grammar  schools  where  the  teaching  was 
to  be  almost  as  hospitable  and  gratuitous  as  in  Ireland 
itself.  It  was  while  all  these  influences  were  in  the  air 
that  Pope  Eugenius  II  for  the  first  time  in  history  issued 
in  826  A.  D.  bulls  enjoining  throughout  Gaul  and  the 
rest  of  Christendom  schools  of  the  kind  that  had  then 
been  in  existence  in  Ireland  for  centuries.  It  was  when 
Louis  the  Pious,  harking  back  to  a  less  enlightened 
tradition  among  Christian  governors,  showed  a  disposi- 
tion to  disregard  the  counsel  of  the  popes  that  the  bishops 
of  France,  again  for  the  first  time  on  record,  recalled  and 
seconded  the  papal  precepts  on  education  and  had  them 
in  turn  confirmed  by  a  later  pope.  It  was  in  direct  con- 
demnation of  the  "negligence  and  indolence"  of  his  father, 
the  Emperor  Louis,  that  Lothaire,  King  of  Italy,  pupil 

80 


Transmitting   Treasures   of   Ancient    Learning 

of  the  Irish  Clement,  issued  in  825  A.  D.  his  important 
edict  assigning  Pavia,  Turin,  Cremona,  Piacenza,  Flor- 
ence and  other  places  for  central  schools,  some  of  them 
with  Irish  teachers  like  Dungal,  to  whom  scholars  from 
the  surrounding  districts,  mentioned  in  detail,  were  to 
resort.  Thus  after  centuries  of  unwearied  efifort  Irish 
scholars  who  presided  at  the  opening  of  tHe  ninth  century 
in  Gaul,  Germany  and  Italy,  saw  the  flourishing  of  the 
seed  which  generations  of  Irishmen  in  those  lands  had 
been  sowing  before  them. 

Yet  it  is  at  the  Irish  foundation  of  St.  Gall  that  we 
find  the  first  Indubitable  evidence  of  the  actual  education 
not  only  of  youth  intended  for  the  priesthood  or  the 
cloister,  but  of  the  Irish  fashion  of  educating  lay  youths 
as  well.  Of  the  ideal  of  lay  or  secular  schools  with  lay 
students  taught  by  lay  teachers,  such  as  existed  In  Ireland, 
we  have  to  come  almost  to  modern  times  to  find  an  example 
in  other  lands.  But  St.  Gall  at  any  rate  made  the  nearest 
approach  to  it  at  this  early  period  and  that  approach 
we  see  in  actual  working  during  a  period  of  renaissance 
when  Irish  teachers  like  Moengal  and  Marcus  were  the 
life  and  soul  of  the  celebrated  center  of  learning  and 
cradle  of  German  civilization. 

Thus  the  remarkable  extant  plan  of  the  monastery  of 
St.  Gall,  c.  820  A.  D.,  which  Dr.  Ferdinand  Keller  un- 
earthed In  1844,*  shows  an  inner  school  of  the  novices 
or  oblati,  i.  e.,  the  boys  offered  to  God,  and  an  outer 
school,  providing  for  about  150  boarders,  for  young  gen- 
tlemen Intended  for  civil  and  military  life."    At  the  time 

1  There  is  a  facsimile  and  description  of  the  plan  in  the  Archaeological 
Journal,  1848,  vol.  5.    (London). 

2  Irish  proficiency  in  the  secular  studies  was  well  recognized  on  the  Con- 
tinent. Thus  Walafrid  Strabo  (d.  849)  says  that  Erlebald,  of  noble  birth  and 
abbot  of  Reichenau  (822-838)  was  first  instructed  at  Reichenau  by  Heito  and 
afterwards  was  sent  with  a  companion  to  some  learned  Irish  instructor  for 
training  in  the  secular  branches  of  the  sciences  and  arts. 

8i 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 


of  its  greatest  activity  both  schools  were  presided  over  by 
the  Irish  scholar,  Moengal. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  in  this  ancient  pictorial  descrip- 
tion of  the  monastery  of  St.  Gall,  which  was  probably 
as  near  an  approach  to  an  Irish  monastery  as  then  existed 
on  the  Continent,  the  entire  establishment  resembles  a 
town  composed  of  isolated  houses  with  streets  running 
between  them.  The  chief  building  was  the  basilica  and 
on  two  sides  of  its  semicircular  atrium  two  Irish  round 
towers  lifted  themselves  into  the  air,  with  altars  to  the 
archangels  Michael  and  Gabriel,  and  conical  roofs  and 
ornamental  finlals.  In  the  basilica  itself  altars  dedicated 
to  St.  Columbanus  and  St.  Benedict  were  placed  side  by 
side,  and  a  digest  of  the  rules  of  both  was  observed  by 
the  coenobites.  The  novices'  school  is  shown  as  a  replica 
of  the  monastery,  complete  in  all  parts,  near  the  church 
and  the  infirmary  of  the  monks,  while  the  secular  school 
was  separated  from  the  cloisters  and  was  near  the  street 
and  the  guest  hall.  Close  to  the  church  were  the  library 
and  scriptorium,  the  calefactory  with  dormitory  over 
abbot's  house,  and  refectory. 

4.  Organizing  the  City  and  Christian  Society 

But,  as  has  been  observed,  the  Irish  monastery  was  a 
city  in  itself,  often  with  a  population  of  many  thousands, 
not  merely  cultivating  all  the  studies,  but  practising  all 
the  arts  and  industries.  Here  at  St.  Gall  we  find  provision 
for  all  these  things.  There  are  kitchen,  doctor's  house, 
house  for  bloodletting,  bakehouse,  brewhouse,  mills  and 
factories  with  accommodation  for  all  the  mechanical  arts. 
Then  there  are  the  outer  departments  with  workshops, 
threshing  floor,  kiln,  stables,  cowsheds,  goatsheds,  pigsties, 
sheepfold,  servants'   and  workmen's  sleeping  quarters, 

82 


Transmitting   Treasures   of   Ancient    Learning 

gardener's  house,  hen  and  duck,  house,  poultry-keeper's 
house,  baths  and  cemetery.  There  is  also  an  immense 
garden  with  all  sorts  of  medicinal  herbs,  and  incidentally 
we  learn  from  a  Latin  poem  in  the  library  the  name  of 
the  Irishman  who  laid  the  gardens  out.  So  the  monastery 
was  not  merely  a  school,  library  and  scriptorium,  but  a 
world  of  industry,  a  university  in  the  large  sense  of  to-day, 
a  living  metropolis,  teaching  the  nation  in  which  it  was 
set  the  art  of  civic  life  and  work. 

Indeed  Wattenbach  assigns  to  the  medieval  Irish  the 
leading  place  in  the  organization  of  Christian  society, 
declaring  them  to  have  first  supplied  the  defect  in  the 
organization  of  society  which  arose  from  the  development 
of  cities,  for  until  their  time  monasteries  had  been  founded 
only  in  the  solitude  of  the  country,  excepting  such  as 
were  attached  to  episcopal  seats.^  Wattenbach  found  the 
inspiration  for  this  observation  in  the  Irish  foundations 
which  Marianus  Scotus  and  his  countrymen  established 
in  Germany  in  the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century.  Thus 
the  merchants  from  Ratisbon  who  founded  Vienna  knew 
no  rest  till  a  colony  of  Irish  monks,  whom  Ratisbon  citi- 
zens had  helped  in  the  building  of  their  first  monastery, 
had  come  and  settled  among  them.  But  it  is  to  be  noted 
as  part  of  the  Irish  contribution  to  modern  civilization 
that  just  as  at  an  earlier  period  Irishmen  had  founded 
cities  like  St.  Gall  by  building  on  sites  in  the  solitude, 
so  at  a  later  period  they  supplied  the  organizing  element 
in  cities  in  the  origin  of  which  they  had  at  first  no  part. 

1  See  Uie  Ulster  Journal  of  Archseology,  Old  Series,  VII,  297. 


83 


CHAPTER  VIII 

WESTERN   CIVILIZATION'S  BASE  OF  SUPPLY 

I.  Military  Strength  of  Medieval  Ireland.  2.  Land  of  Enormous 
Wealth.  3.  Celtic,  Greek,  and  Roman  Europe.  4.  Ireland's  Abun- 
dance of  Gold.  5.  Exodus  of  Irish  Scholars.  6.  Parallel  Promulga- 
tion of  Civilization  and  Christianity. 

I.   Military  Strength  of  Medieval  Ireland 

BEHIND  the  men  engaged  in  the  great  work  of 
rehabilitation  abroad  lay  as  base  of  supply  an 
Ireland  very  different  from  the  Ireland  familiar 
to  us  in  recent  times.  Medieval  Ireland  was  not  only 
the  freest  and  most  enlightened  country  on  earth,  but 
also  the  richest  and  almost  the  most  compact  and  power- 
ful. It  is  inconceivable  that  the  men  of  Ireland  could 
have  done  the  things  they  did  unless  she  was  all  these 
things.  But  we  do  not  need  to  argue  back  from  the  work 
of  Irish  scholars  and  missionaries  abroad.  We  have  all 
the  data  necessary  to  a  complete  presentment  of  Ireland 
itself  and  the  deeds  performed  by  her.  When  the  first 
Dane  appeared  on  her  coasts  at  the  close  of  the  eighth 
century  Ireland  could  look  back  on  an  authentic  history 
of  at  least  a  thousand  years  during  which  no  foreigner 
had  dared  to  violate  her  by  attempted  occupation. 
Dating  from  that  very  century  there  is  still,  as  has  been 
noted,  extant  a  history  in  the  old  Irish  tongue  which 
speaks  of  the  last  invasion  of  Ireland  by  the  Gaels  them- 
selves and  of  the  establishment  of  the  kingdom  in  the  time 
of  Alexander  the  Great.^  From  that  time  forward  the 
Gaels  of  Ireland  had  never  known  any  rule  but  Irish  rule, 
administered  through  all  the  clans,  under  a  single  royal 

1  See  p.  29  supra. 

84 


Western  Civilization's  Base  of  Supply- 
dynasty  and  government,  called  in  history  the  Milesian, 
that  still  endured  from  the  time  when  the  last  migration 
of  the  Gaels  entered  the  island. 

The  prolonged  period  of  peace  and  prosperity  did  not 
enervate  the  Irish  people.  In  1014  A.  D.  at  Clontarf 
they  crushed  the  Danes  w^ho  had  conquered  both  France 
and  England.  Four  years  later  at  Carham  the  Irish 
forces  inhabiting  Scotland  inflicted  on  the  English  a 
defeat  more  decisive  than  Bannockburn.  Repeatedly  the 
Irish  had  appeared  in  the  v^ay  of  conquering  the  entire 
British  Isles.  As  the  Roman  forces  in  the  fifth  century  w^ith- 
drew  from  Britain  Irish  armies  followed  them  to  the  foot 
of  the  Alps,  Irish  fleets  held  the  western  seas,  and  what 
is  now  England  was  almost  entirely  Irish  ground.  But 
Christianity  came  to  Ireland  in  the  very  midst  of  these 
events  and  from  that  time  forth  no  raiding  expedition 
went  forth  from  the  island.  Again,  following  the  battle 
of  Carham  In  1018  A.  D.,the  northern  counties  of  England 
became  ground  so  debatable  that  they  were  not  included 
in  the  Domesday  Book  of  the  Conqueror.  Had  the  Franks 
from  Normandy  and  the  contiguous  French  provinces 
not  appeared  in  1066  A.  D.  at  Hastings  to  give  the  coup 
de  grace  to  the  demoralized  English  the  chances  are  that 
the  finishing  blow  would  have  been  delivered  by  the  Irish 
of  the  north,  and  southern  Britain,  first  British,  then 
Roman,  Saxon,  and  Danish,  might  like  Wales  and  Scot- 
land have  become  enduringly  Irish. 

The  Norman  French  and  the  Flemings  who  began  to 
emigrate  to  Ireland^  about  a  century  after  their  conquest 
of  England  came  in  contact  with  a  people  at  least  quite 
the  equal  in  culture  and  manners  of  any  on  the  Continent 

1  Thia  French  entry  into  Ireland  is  often  spoken  of  as  an  "English"  in- 
vasion and  as  signalizing  the  beginning  of  "English  rule"  in  Ireland.  The 
absxirdity  of  this  will  be  apparent. 

85 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

and  in  whom  an  immemorial  pride  of  family  and  birth 
and  an  unbroken  sense  of  freedom  had  made  obeisance 
to  any  conqueror  inconceivable/  The  newcomers  speedily 
succumbed  to  Irish  civilization  and,  dropping  their 
French  speech,  dress  and  customs,  sought  matrimonial 
alliances  with  Irish  families  of  equal  station  and  became, 
in  the  old  phrase,  more  Irish  than  the  Irish  themselves. 

Very  different  had  been  the  behavior  of  these  French- 
men in  England.  The  Anglo-Saxon  had  not  taken  to 
civilization  kindly.  The  vices,  the  brutalities,  the  indo- 
lences and  sensualities  of  an  intractable  barbarism 
weighed  him  down,  and  despite  six  centuries  of  wander- 
ing among  the  habitations  of  Roman  civilization,  and 
despite  almost  five  centuries  of  Christianity,  the  English- 
man still  remained  the  semi-savage,  using  his  intervals  of 
liberty  from  one  oppression  or  another  to  alternate  ex- 
cesses of  swinish  self-indulgence  with  suicidal  orgies  of 
internecine  strife.^  To  his  French  conqueror  the  medieval 
Englishman  was  simply  an  evil-smelling  boor  and  hind, 
fit  only  for  low  and  menial  tasks;  and  to  such  tasks  he 
was  henceforth  condemned.^  Thus  the  Anglo-Saxon, 
trodden  into  resistless  clay  by  the  Dane,  was  trodden 

1  Nothing  more  surprized  these  French  and  Flemish  settlers  from  Britain, 
accustomed  as  they  were  to  the  cringing  servility  of  the  English  produced  by 
long  slavery  and  what  contemporary  Norman  French  writers  call  innate  Sax- 
on dulness,  than  the  natural  boldness  and  readiness  of  the  ordinary  Irish  in. 
speaking  even  in  the  presence  of  their  princes  and  nobles.  (Giraldus  Cam- 
brensis,  "Description  of  Wales,"  b.  i.,  C.  15;  but  the  remarks  apply  to  the  Irish 
in  a  greater  degree.) 

2  Green  is  more  candid  in  his  correspondence  than  in  his  history.  Thus  in 
writing  to  Freeman  about  his  projected  history  to  the  Norman  conquest,  he 
remarks:  "As  I  read  it,  the  story  isn't  a  pretty  one,  and  the  people  are  not 
pretty  people  to  write  about."  Stubbs  had  told  him  that  people  would  not 
read  anything  In  English  history  before  1066,  He  refused  to  bow  to  this 
doom  and  managed  to  throw  over  the  facts  and  absence  of  facts  a  veil  of 
romance.     (Letters  of  John  Richard  Green,  478.) 

3  "Who  dare  compare  the  English,  the  most  degraded  of  all  the  races  under 
Heaven,  with  the  Welsh?"  writes  Giraldus  Cambrensis  (1147-1222).  "In  their 
own  country  they  are  serfs,  the  veriest  slaves  of  the  Normans.  In  ours  (Wales) 
whom  else  have  we  for  our  shepherds,  herdsmen,  cobblers,  skinners,  cleaners 
of  our  dog-kennels,  aye,  even  of  our  privies,  but  Englishmen?"  (Opera,  ed. 
by  J.  S.  Brewer,  vol.  Ill,  p,  27.) 

86 


Western  Civilization's  Base  of  Supply 

down  into  a  deeper  well  of  degradation  by  the  Frank,  by 
whom  he  was  classed  with  the  cattle  in  the  field  and  to 
whom  he  remained  as  much  a  stranger.  We  can  judge 
in  no  clearer  way  of  the  military  prowess  of  the  Irish  and 
of  the  strength  and  brilliancy  of  their  civilization  than 
by  their  contrasted  effect  on  the  all-conquering  Frank  from 
Normandy,  Anjou  and  Aquitaine,  whose  name  had  be- 
come a  terror  in  England,  Sicily  and  in  the  East. 

2.  Land  of  Enormous  Wealth 
Ireland,  however,  was  a  country  not  only  militarily 
powerful  and  highly  cultured,  but  also  a  country  of  enor- 
mous wealth.  This  is  evidenced,  among  other  things,  by 
her  large  population  of  English  slaves.  The  English 
slave,  as  will  later  be  shown,  was  as  familiar  a  figure  to 
the  medieval  Irishman  as  the  negro  slave  to  the  southern 
planter  in  the  United  States  in  the  early  half  of  the  last 
century.  These  English  slaves  were  carried  in  cargoes  to 
Ireland  from  English  ports  much  as  the  negro  slave  was 
carried  from  Africa  to  America  at  a  later  epoch.  Irish 
families  of  station  had  their  Anglo-Saxon  ''fudirs,"  male 
and  female,  just  as  the  family  of  the  southern  planter 
each  had  its  "nigger."  Many  Irish  families  had  large 
numbers  of  these  English  slaves,  and  herds  of  them  were 
often  included  in  the  tributes,  donations  and  stipends  that 
passed  between  one  Irish  family  of  rank  and  another. 
These  English  slaves  were  not  taken  in  war,  as  some  his- 
torians try  to  make  out,  the  tolerance  which  the  medieval 
Irishman  showed  to  the  Englishman,  and  the  almost  sav- 
age worship  which  the  Englishman  manifested  towards 
the  Irishman,   rendering  hostilities  almost  impossible.^ 

1  During  the  entire  period  before  the  French  conquest  and  after  the  arrival 
of  Aidan  only  one  act  of  hostility  is  recorded  as  having^  been  perpetrated  by 
the  English  against  Ireland,  namely,  the  raid  made  by  the  order  of  Ecgfrith, 
referred  to  by  Bede,  and  really  directed,  it  would  seem,  against  the  protection 
there  afforded  to  Aldfrid,  his  half-brother  and  rival,  who  succeeded  him. 

S7 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

The  slaves  were  purchased  in  England  by  dealers  from 
the  degraded  fathers  and  mothers  and  other  more  power- 
ful relatives  of  the  unfortunates.^ 

Much  of  Ireland's  wealth  came  to  her  in  foreign  com- 
merce, carried  on  from  the  beginning  with  her  kindred 
in  Gaul.  That  wealth  was  well  recognized  abroad.  We 
find,  among  others,  Walafrid  Strabo  writing  in  the  ninth 
century  of  "wealthy  Hibernia.""  Doncadh,  or  Donatus,  of 
Fiesole,  goes  very  much  further  and  gives  in  Latin 
hexameters  a  glowing  description  in  the  same  century 
of  Ireland's  exhaustless  riches.^  In  the  tenth  century  she 
remained  "that  very  wealthy  country  in  which  there  are 
twelve  cities  and  wide  bishoprics  and  a  king  and  that  has 
its  own  language  and  Latin  letters."* 

The  impression  has  long  prevailed  that  Ireland  had 
from  the  beginning  been  widely  removed  from  the  main 
stream  of  European  life  and  that  her  fate  had  been  to 
move  around  in  a  backwater  where  only  the  fainter  wash 
of  the  larger  currents  reached,  neither  giving  nor  re- 
ceiving much  from  Europe.  Her  position  in  the  extreme 
West  has  nurtured  this  view,  but  the  enterprise  of  her  sons, 
surpassing  the  energy  of  every  other  nation  in  the  West, 
overbore  in  antiquity  as  in  the  medieval  era  the  obstacles 
of  nature. 

1  See  Appendix  A. 

2  In  his  life  of  Blaithmac,  monk  of  lona:  Blaithmac,  grenuit  quem  divet 
Hibernia  mundo  (Poetae  Lat.  A.  C,  II,  297). 

3  Migne  and  Poetae  Latini  Aevi  Carolini  reproduce  the  poem;  and  transla- 
tions in  Irisli  and  English  are  given  in  Flannery,  "For  the  Tongue  of  the 
Gael."    See  also  Ossianic  Society,  V.  p.  75. 

4  Chronicle  of  Ademar,  Monk  of  Angoulfime. 


88 


Western  Civilization's  Base  of  Supply 

3.  Celtic,  Greek  and  Roman  Europe 

The  truth  is  that  Celt,  Roman  and  Greek  lived  side  by 
side  from  beyond  the  dawn  of  history,^  and  no  foreign 
element  drove  a  wedge  between  them  till  the  Saxon  and 
Anglian  tribes  invaded  Britain  in  the  fifth  century  sepa- 
rating the  Celts  of  Ireland  from  their  continental  brethren. 
The  Irish  were  thus  always  active  in  the  interchange  of 
knowledge  and  trade,  keeping  close  to  the  heart  of  the 
developing  civilization  of  the  West,  whether  Cartha- 
ginian, Celt,  Greek  or  Roman  was  in  the  ascendant.^ 

Europe  was  Gaulish,  or  Celtic,  before  it  was  Roman, 
and  when  history,  as  revealed  by  what  are  called  classical 
writers,  dawned,  a  single  civilization  and  a  single  speech, 
shading  ofif  into  various  dialects,  prevailed  from  the  west 
coast  of  Ireland  almost  to  the  Black  Sea.^    Thus  Celtic, 

1  Modern  research  seems  to  have  shown  that  the  master  race  of  Greece, 
the  Achaians,  whose  deathless  glories  are  enshrined  in  the  poems  of  Homer, 
were  a  fairhaired  race  of  Celtic  invaders,  whom  the  discovery  of  iron  mad© 
irresistible,  and  who,  descending  into  the  Peloponnesus  from  the  head  of  the 
Adriatic,  conquered  the  aboriginal  Pelagians  or  Greeks  proper,  and,  having 
made  of  them  helots,  adopted  the  language  of  the  subject  race,  as  appears 
to  be  the  habit  of  invading  conquerors,  when  they  do  not  bring  their  wives 
with  them.  (Cf.  Ridgeway.  "Early  Age  of  Greece.")  In  like  manner  the  Patri- 
cians of  Rome  appear  to  have  been  a  Celtic  tribe  of  Umbro-Sabellians,  who 
descended  from  the  Alps  into  Central  Italy,  conquered  the  aboriginal  Latins 
or  Ligurians,  later  known  to  history  as  the  Plebeians,  and  who  then  adopted 
the  tongue  of  the  subject  people  in  place  of  the  Celtic  dialect  they  had 
brought  with  them  (see  Ridgeway,  "Who  Were  the  Romans?"  British  Acad., 
Proc,  1907-8.) 

2  Thus  in  1831,  two  hundred  Roman  coins  were  found  in  Ireland  near  the 
Giants'  Causeway,  dating  from  70  A.  D.  to  160  A.  D.  Bodies  have  been  found 
near  Bray  Head,  each  with  a  copper  coin  of  Trajan  or  Hadrian  on  his  breast. 
Ptolemy  gives  a  more  accurate  picture  of  Hibemia  than  of  Britannia,  enumer- 
ating several  Irish  cities,  three  being  seaports,  seven  inland.  Tacitus  de- 
scribes the  ports  of  Ireland  as  better  known  to  merchants  and  traders  than 
those  of  Britain.  Juvenal's  Satires  attest  that  Irish  woolen  goods  were  sold 
and  worn  in  Rome. 

3  We  are  dependent  on  Irish  literature  for  our  knowledge  of  ancient 
Europe  and  its  Celtic  world,  for  Ireland,  outside  of  Greece  and  Rome,  is  the 
only  country  that  has  preserved  a  record  of  its  life  during  the  period  of  anti- 
quity. In  the  Tain,  the  chief  Irish  epic,  we  find  depicted  an  Irish  world  con- 
temporaneous with  the  Rome  of  Sulla  and  Caesar.  Thus  the  Irish  champions 
have  much  in  common  with  the  warriors  of  Gaul  described  by  the  Greek 
traveler.  Posidonius,  while  their  equipment  and  armor  correspond  with  the 
La  Tene  types  on  the  Continent.  The  Irish  heroes,  for  example,  still  fight  in 
chariots,  war-dogs  are  employed,  whilst  the  heads  of  the  slain  are  carried 
off  in  triumph  and  slung  round  the  necks  of  the  horses.  (See  Ridgeway,  First 
Shaping  of  the  Cuchulain  Saga,  Proc,  Brit.  Acad.,  1905-6.) 

89 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

the  mother  of  the  Irish  language,  was  sister  to  Latin  and 
Greek,  and  the  Celtic  dialects  spoken  in  Gaul  appear  to 
have  shaded  so  gradually  into  the  Italic  or  Latin  lan- 
guages spoken  in  the  South  that  there  hardly  seems  to 
have  been  a  frontier  line  between  them/ 

The  continued  intercourse  of  the  Irish  with  their 
Gaulish  kindred  soon  filled  Ireland  with  the  refinements 
of  a  luxurious  civilization.  *Trom  various  sources  we 
learn,"  says  Gilbert,  "that  in  those  ancient  times  the  native 
dress  was  costly  and  picturesque  and  the  habits  and  modes 
of  living  of  the  chiefs  splendid  and  oriental.  The  high-born 
and  wealthy  wore  tunics  of  fine  linen  of  immense  width, 
girdled  with  gold,  and  with  flowing  sleeves  after  the  east- 
ern fashion.  The  fringed  cloak,  or  cuchula,  with  a  hood, 
after  the  Arab  mode,  was  clasped  on  the  shoulders  with 
a  golden  brooch.  Golden  circlets  of  beautiful  and  classic 
form,  confined  their  long,  flowing  hair,  crowned  with 
which  the  chiefs  sat  at  the  banquet,  or  went  to  war.  San- 
dals upon  the  feet,  and  bracelet  and  signet  rings,  of  rich 
and  curious  workmanship,  completed  the  costume.  The 
ladies  wore  the  silken  robes  and  flowing  veils  of  Persia, 
or  rolls  of  linen  wound  round  the  head  like  the  Egyptian 
Isis,  the  hair  curiously  plaited  down  the  back  and  fastened 
with  gold  and  silver  bodkins,  while  the  neck  and  arms 
were  profusely  covered  with  jewels." 

Thus  the  relics  of  a  civilization  3,000  years  old  may 

1  The  names  of  the  chiefs  of  Gaul  who  fought  with  Casar  are  compre- 
hensible in  Irish:  For  example:  Vercingetorlx,  Irish — ^Fear  cinn  gacha  toruish, 
"the  man  at  the  head  of  every  expedition;"  Dumnorix,  Irish — domadh  an  toruS; 
"second  person  of  the  expedition;"  Orgetorix,  Irish — orra,  "chief,"  gacha,  "oi 
every,"  torus,  "expedition;"  Eporedorix,  Irish — ab  urra  torus,  "sire  and  chiel 
of  the  expedition;"  Andecumborius,  Irish — an  te  cum  bothar,  "ambassador," 
"man  for  the  road;"  Bellovesus,  Irish — ^bealach  fiosach,  "man  acquainted  with 
the  highways;"  and  so  on.  The  case  is  the  same  with  the  names  of  places 
Garonne,  Irish — garbh  amhan,  "rough  river;"  Alps,  Irish — ^ailp,  "mountain;' 
Sequana,  Irish — seach  amhan,  "dividing  river."  The  names  are  written  dowr 
by  Csesar  as  they  sounded  to  Roman  ears.  (See  Holder,  Alt-Celtischei 
Sprachschatz,  Leipzig,  1896;  "Irish  Names  in  Csesar,"  Catholic  World,  Ne^B 
York,  1882.) 

90 


Western  Civilization's  Base  of  Supply 

be  still  gazed  upon  by  modern  eyes  in  the  unrivaled 
antiquarian  collection  of  the  Royal  Irish  Academy  at 
Dublin.  The  circlets,  lunulas,  fibulae,  torques,  gorgets, 
tiaras,  diadems,  necklaces,  bracelets,  rings,  there  to  be 
seen,  nearly  all  of  solid  gold,  worn  by  the  ancient  Irish, 
are  not  only  costly  in  value,  but  often  so  singularly  beauti- 
ful in  the  w^orking  out  of  minute  artistic  details,  that 
modern  art  is  not  merely  unable  to  imitate  them,  but  is 
even  unable  to  comprehend  how  the  ancient  workers  in 
metals  could  accomplish  works  of  such  delicate,  almost 
microscopic,  minuteness  of  finish.  This  single  Irish  col- 
lection contains  some  five  hundred  ornaments  of  gold,  a 
scanty  remnant,  miraculously  recovered,  of  what  has  been 
lost,  carried  out  of  the  country,  and  melted  down:  their 
weight  is  five  hundred  and  seventy  ounces,  as  compared 
with  a  weight  of  twenty  ounces — much  of  it  considered 
to  be  originally  Irish  also — in  the  British  Museum  from 
all  England,  Scotland  and  Wales. 

4.   Ireland's  Abundance  of  Gold 

These  remarkable  jewels,  detritus  rescued  from  great 
destructions,  lend  an  air  of  perfect  reality  to  the  numerous 
passages  in  ancient  Irish  literature  in  which  the  various 
personages  are  described  as  wearing  ornaments  of  gold 
and  other  precious  materials.  The  Book  of  Ballymote, 
for  example,  contains  a  striking  early  medieval  de- 
scription of  Cormac,  son  of  Airt,  high  monarch  of  Ire- 
land (d.  266  A.  D.),  presiding  over  the  parliament  at 
Tara,  in  which  gold  ornaments  figure:  "Flowing  and 
slightly  curling  was  his  golden  hair,  a  red  buckler  with 
stars  and  animals  of  gold  and  fastenings  of  silver  upon 
him,  a  crimson  cloak  in  wide  descending  folds  around 
him,  fastened  at  his  neck  with  precious  stones,  a  neck 

91 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

torque  of  gold  around  his  neck,  a  white  shirt  with  a  full 
collar  and  intertwined  with  red  gold  thread  upon  him; 
a  girdle  of  gold,  inlaid  with  precious  stones,  was  around 
him ;  two  wonderful  shoes  of  gold  with  golden  loops  upon 
his  feet;  two  spears  with  golden  sockets  in  his  hands, 
with  many  rivets  of  red  bronze,  and  he  was  himself, 
besides,  symmetrical  and  beautiful  of  form,  without  blem- 
ish or  reproach."  The  passage  is  but  typical  of  many  in 
the  Irish  tales  relating  to  habiliments,  vestiture,  weapons, 
and  armor,  which,  in  the  case  of  the  higher  classes,  were 
costly  and  splendid. 

Ireland's  former  wealth  in  gold  was  nothing  short  of 
extraordinary.  "For  hundreds  of  years  Ireland  was  an 
enormously  rich  country,  supplying  not  only  herself  but 
also  Britain  and  part  of  the  Atlantic  seaboard  with  gold. 
Such  natural  wealth  must  have  produced  a  marked  efifect 
on  the  relations  and  culture  of  the  Irish.'"  Giraldus 
Cambrensis  testifies  to  the  abundance  of  gold  in  Ireland. 
Montelius  remarks  that  "Ireland's  wealth  of  gold  in  the 
Bronze  Age  is  amazing."  "No  other  country  possesses 
so  much  manufactured  gold  belonging  to  early  and 
medieval  times,"  says  E.  A.  Smith.^  "Ireland's  original 
wealth  of  gold  must  have  been  so  vast  as  scarcely  to  be 
credited,"  says  an  authority  already  quoted.^  It  has  been 
repeatedly  remarked  that  in  the  literature  of  no  other 
country  are  there  as  many  references  to  gold,  as  an  ordi- 
nary possession,  as  in  Irish  literature.  This  Irish  wealth 
of  gold  is  one  of  the  unsolved  mysteries  of  Irish  history. 
The  mere  extant  remains  exceed  the  known  medieval 
quantity  of  gold  of  any  country,  save  perhaps  equatorial 
Colombia  alone. 

1  Reid,  Archaeology,  En.  Brit.  11th  ed. 

2  Of  the  Royal  Colleg-e  of  Mines  (London). 
8  Reid,  loo.  cit. 

92 


Western  Civilization's  Base  of  Supply 

In  793  the  Danes  made  their  first  descent  on  the  English 
coast.  Lindisfarne  suffered  severely  at  their  hands  as 
well  as  south  Wales.  They  also  visited  France.  But 
thereafter  for  a  generation  they  forgot  both  France  and 
England  and  for  thirty  years  confined  their  attention  to 
the  spoliation  of  Ireland.  In  that  they  showed  good 
judgment,  for,  tho  Ireland  was  a  more  powerful  foe  than 
other  countries  and  was  eventually  destined  to  down  them, 
it  was  also  the  citadel  of  Christian  civilization  and  was 
very  much  richer  than  both  France  and  England.*  A 
national  development,  free  from  foreign  intrusion,  going 
back  to  the  point  almost  contemporary  with  the  founding 
of  Rome,  had  made  her  the  treasure-house  of  the  West. 
Her  accumulation  of  precious  metals,  heaped  up  from 
a  vast  antiquity,  had  been  poured  into  innumerable  shrines 
on  islands  and  in  valleys,  and  these  the  martial  cupidity 
and  cunning  of  the  Danes,  by  ceaseless  surprize  attacks 
and  thieving  raids,  were  concentrated  on  rifling.  The 
wealth  borne  from  Ireland  in  those  distant  times  is  still 
attested  to  by  the  quantity  of  Irish  metal  work  in  Scan- 
dinavian lands.  What  they  could  not  steal,  what  they 
were  unable  to  understand  or  appraise  these  Danes  de- 
stroyed, and  against  nothing  did  they  evince  a  greater 
destructive  vandalism  than  against  Irish  books,  to  which, 
in  common  with  the  English,  they  ascribed  superstitious 
powers.  But  after  each  considerable  attack — and  the  at- 
tacks continued  till  the  Battle  of  Clontarf,  1014 — Ireland 
shook  herself  together  again  and  repaired  the  damage. 
She  did  not  succumb  to  Danish  power,  as  eventually  En- 

1  In  1285,  more  than  a  hundred  years  after  the  so-called  Norman  "con- 
quest" of  Ireland  we  find  Ireland  described  as  rich  and  powerful,  and  the 
English  in  comparison  as  poor;  Item,  Hibernenses  sunt  divites,  potentes,  et 
Anglici  pauperes,  quod  vix  illi  Ang^lici  qui  potuerunt  in  sexdecim  ....  eisdem 
in  equitatura  contra  Hibernenses;  modo  non  habent  quod  manducent.  (Cal- 
endar of  Documents,  Ireland,  ed.  Sweetman,  iii.,  p.  15;  Mrs.  Green,  "The  Mak- 
ing of  Ireland  and  Its  Undoing,"  p.  13.) 

93 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of  Britain 

gland  and  part  of  France  succumbed,  but  finally  crushed 
it  utterly  so  that  Irish  sovereignty  was  not  irremediably 
impaired. 

These  things  are  given  in  order  that  we  may  add  to  our 
conception  of  the  land  from  which  the  Irish  builders 
of  European  civilization  went.  Its  wealth  and  its  strength, 
as  well  as  its  culture,  were  assets  in  their  work.  A  knowl- 
edge of  these  facts  helps  us  to  a  clearer  analysis  of  their 
motives.  Not  poverty  or  strife  or  hope  of  betterment  car- 
ried them  to  other  lands.  The  occasions  and  purposes  of 
their  exiles  and  journeys  were  altogether  dififerent. 

5.   Exodus  of  Irish  Scholars 

That  Ireland  should  have  been  the  .retreat  and  nursery 
of  learning  and  the  center  of  intellectual  activity  while 
the  rest  of  Europe  was  the  prey  of  barbarism  would  ap- 
pear to  have  been  distinction  enough.  Little  reproach 
could  have  been  cast  upon  her  had  she  been  content  to 
enjoy  the  fruits  of  her  own  civilization,  sharing  those 
fruits  the  while  with  such  foreign  visitors  as  sought  them 
on  Irish  soil.  But  the  fact  remains  that  she  was  not  so 
content. 

At  an  early  period,  as  one  French  writer  puts  it,^  Irish 
sanctity  and  culture  became  animated  by  an  ardent  spirit 
of  proselytism  and  missionary  zeal.  The  converts  of  one 
generation  became  the  apostles  of  another.  Fervent  monks 
longed  with  a  great  longing  to  carry  beyond  the  sea  their 
methods  of  asceticism.  Their  voluntary  exile  appeared 
to  them  in  the  light  of  a  supreme  immolation  sovereignly 
fitted  to  perfect  the  work  of  renunciation  which  they  had 
undertaken.  They  left  the  land  of  their  birth,  radiant 
with  tender  associations,  blooming  like  a  garden  with  the 

1  Gougaud,  Les  Chretientes  Celtiques,  p.  135. 

94 


Western  Civilization's   Base  of  Supply 

cultivation  of  the  arts  and  sciences,  to  become  ''monks 
and  exiles  for  the  sake  of  Christ,"  "for  the  love  of  God," 
"for  the  name  of  the  Lord,"  "for  the  love  of  the  name 
of  Christ,"  "for  the  benefit  of  their  souls,"  "for  the  gaining 
of  the  heavenly  land,"  as  "pilgrims  for  the  kingdom  of 
God" — such  are  the  formulae  which  the  biographers  of 
these  consecrated  pilgrims  preferably  employ.  Pro 
Christo  peregrinari  volens  enavigavit — "Desiring  to  go 
abroad  for  Christ  he  sailed  away"  are  the  words  of  Adam- 
nan  concerning  Columcille.  "My  country,"  said  Mochona, 
one  of  Columcille's  disciples,  "is  where  I  can  gather  the 
largest  harvest  for  Christ."  The  three  Irishmen  who  after 
tossing  on  the  seas  for  days  arrived  at  the  English  coast 
and  were  received  by  King  Alfred  had  left  Ireland,  the 
Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  tells  us,  "because  for  the  love  of 
God  they  would  be  on  pilgrimage  they  recked  not  where." 
They  called  themselves,  and  were  called  by  others, 
"peregrini,"  that  is  to  say,  pilgrims,  strangers,  voluntary 
exiles.  They  interdicted  themselves  for  a  prolonged 
period — often  for  their  whole  life — from  returning  to 
their  own  land.  The  hagiographers,  for  this  reason,  often 
compare  them  to  Abraham.  It  seemed  as  if  they  had  all 
heard  the  voice  which  said  to  the  Patriarch:  "Go  forth 
out  of  thy  country  and  from  thy  kindred."^ 

To  continental  people  there  was  something  baffling  in 
the  sustained  energy  of  these  medieval  Irishmen.  Writ- 
ers of  the  time  make  note  of  the  impression  of  wonder 
produced  by  the  Irish  passion  for  traveling  and  preach- 
ing. How  strongly  the  Alemanni  of  the  ninth  century, 
who  never  left  their  own  country,  were  imprest,  asZimmer 
notes,  by  this  trait  of  the  Irish,  is  perceived  in  the  remark 

1  Compare  on  this  subject  the  reasoning  from  insufficient  evidence  of  John 
Henry  Newman,  Hist.  Sketches,  Vol.  III.  Yet  Newman  compares  very  favor- 
ably with  some  later  English  Catholic  writers,  who  have  had  opportunities 
of  knowing  better. 

95 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of  Britain 

of  Walafrid  Strabo  (d.  849)  when  in  allusion  to  it  he 
says :  "The  habit  of  traveling  to  distant  lands  has  become 
a  second  nature  to  this  people."^  Men  of  education  in 
Britain  likewise  make  note  of  it.  Thus  we  have  the 
remark  of  Alcuin  that  "it  has  long  since  been  a  custom 
for  very  learned  teachers  to  come  from  Ireland  to  Britain, 
Gaul  and  Italy."^  The  frequent  testimony  of  Alcuin  to 
the  state  of  learning  in  Ireland  is  valuable  because  of  his 
close  association  with  Irishmen. 

To  leave  home  and  kindred  for  the  inaccessible  crag, 
the  high  mountain,  the  bare  desert,  the  ocean-swept  isle, 
seemed  to  these  ascetic  Irishmen  the  literal  following  in 
the  footsteps  of  the  Lord.  To  seek  out  remote  tribes,  and 
work  among  them,  preaching,  teaching,  spending  them- 
selves in  behalf  of  them,  building  them  up  into  Christian 
nations,  was  again  work  such  as  Christ  commanded  and 
his  disciples  performed.  "Going,  teach  all  nations !"  was  an 
admonition  they  ardently  took  to  heart  and  to  which  many 
of  them  consecrated  their  lives.  And  they  communicated 
this  spirit  to  their  disciples  and  thus  set  going  a  moral 
energy  that  carried  Europe  forward  for  centuries  and 
made  Christianity  synonymous  with  civilization. 

Ireland  succeeded  in  retaining  the  heroic  spirit  of  its 
pagan  youth  and  accommodating  It  to  its  later  Christian 
ideals.  The  fierce  courage  of  a  Cuchulain  was  changed 
into  the  spiritual  heroism  of  a  Columcille.  The  superter- 
restrial  zeal  of  the  missionary  and  monk  is  foreshadowed 
in  the  unyielding  resolution  of  the  pagan  warrior.  The 
valor  of  death  in  the  midst  of  labors  of  so  many  devoted 

1  Nuper  quoque  de  natione  Scottorura,  consuetude  peregrinandi  jam  paene 
in  naturam  conversa  est.  Vita  S.  Galli,  Mon.  Germ.  Hist.,  Script.  Rer.  Germ. 
IV,  336.  See  also  his  poem  Ad  Probum  Presbyterum,  Poetae  Lat.  Car.,  II, 
394.  Osbem  of  Canterbury  has  something  similar  to  say:  quod  aliis  bona 
volimtas  in  consuetudinem,  hoc  illis  (sc.  Hibernis)  consuetude  uertet  in 
naturam  (Stubb's  Dunstan,  p.  74). 

2  Mon.  Ger.  Hist.  Epp.,  IV,  437. 

96 


Western  Civilization's  Base  of  Supply 

Irishmen  found  its  secular  parallel  in  the  intrepidity  of 
the  death-hour  of  Cuchulain:  "Beir  leat  me  d'ionnsaigid 
na  carraige  cloice  ud  tael  ar  do  comair  gurab  ann  do- 
geubad  has  agus  deirig  m'airm  orm,  agus  an  fead  do-cifid 
fir  Eireann  mar  sin  me,  ni  leigfi  an  eagla  doib  teact  im 
ionnsaigid  dom  diceannad."  "Carry  me  and  stand  me 
against  yonder  rock,  and  put  my  weapons  in  my  hands, 
and  when  the  men  of  Eire  shall  see  me  in  such  guise  sheer 
fear  will  deter  them  from  approaching  to  behead  me." 

Somewhat  later  than  the  cycle  to  which  Cuchulain  and 
his  fellow  champions  belonged  there  was  an  order  of 
chivalry  in  ancient  Ireland  called  the  Fianna  or  Fenians, 
whose  heroic  accomplishments  are  sung  by  Oisin,  or 
Ossian.  Than  the  Fianna,  whose  chief  was  Fionn,  there 
were  no  stronger,  straighter,  bolder,  nobler  men  in  all 
Eire.  Each  member  had  to  vow  never  to  refuse  hospi- 
tality, never  to  turn  his  back  in  battle,  never  to  insult 
a  woman,  nor  to  accept  a  dowry  with  his  wife.  He  had 
to  be  able  to  ward  of¥  with  his  shield  the  spears  of  his 
adversaries  hurling  them  simultaneously,  to  be  able  to 
fly  through  forests  without  loosing  his  braided  locks,  or 
breaking  a  branch,  to  jump  over  a  branch  as  high  as  his 
forehead  and  stoop  under  one  as  low  as  his  heel  while 
running  at  full  speed,  and  to  pluck  a  thorn  from  his  foot 
while  so  doing. 

All  this  spirit  of  high  and  vehement  endeavor,  mir- 
rored in  the  wonderful  poems  of  Oisin,  was  carried  over 
from  pagan  into  Christian  Ireland.  It  animated  the 
eremite  monks  who  looked  for  solitude  in  the  center  of 
the  ocean,  in  the  heart  of  desert  wastes,  on  the  high  moun- 
tain, or  in  the  cold  of  arctic  islands,  and  it  animated  the 
missionaries  and  schoolmen.  They  looked  on  life  as  a 
warfare,  and  themselves  as  soldiers,  trained  and  armed  for 
8  97 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

spiritual  combat,  and  they  responded  to  the  spiritual  call 
of  religion,  of  learning  and  of  liberty,  as  they  had  before 
answered  to  the  martial  call  of  bard  and  king.  They  were 
called  ascetics,  or  athletes,  which  is  the  very  meaning  of 
the  Greek  word,  and  they  loved  to  "make  a  record,"  and 
records  they  made  in  abundance,  as  we  shall  see  as  we 
proceed. 

Behind  the  going  from  Ireland  of  some  of  these  pas- 
sionate pilgrims  often  lay  a  romance  of  high  passion  such 
as  is  depicted  in  Irish  literature  with  wonderful  purity, 
tenderness  and  charm.  There  is  for  example  the  ninth 
century  tale  of  "Liadain  and  Curithir,"  which,  by  its 
pathos  and  rare  knowledge  of  the  human  heart,  recalls 
the  other  great  love  stories  of  the  world's  literature.  It 
tells  of  the  love  of  a  poetess  who  has  taken  the  veil  for  a 
young  poet  from  whom  her  vows  separate  her  forever. 
Thus  the  plot  is  a  conflict  between  love  and  religion.  The 
lovers  seek  the  direction  of  one  of  the  saints  who  gives 
them  the  choice  between  seeing  each  other  without  speak- 
ing or  speaking  without  seeing. 

"Talking  for  us,"  says  the  poet.  "We  have  been  look- 
ing at  each  other  all  our  lives."  So  they  converse,  while 
one  is  enclosed  in  a  cell  and  the  other  wanders  around  it. 
Passionate  words  of  love  and  longing  and  regret  are  ex- 
changed : 

"Beloved  is  the  dear  voice  that  I  hear 
I  dare  not  welcome  it. 
'Tis  this  the  voice  does  to  me, 
It  will  not  let  me  sleep." 

At  length  the  poet  is  banished  by  the  saint  and,  re- 
nouncing love,  takes  up  the  pilgrim's  staff.  The  hapless 
Liadain  follows,  seeking  him  and  wailing: 

"Joyless 
The  bargain  I  have  made: 

98 


Western  Civilization's  Base  of  Supply 

The  heart  of  him  I  love  I  wrung. 

I  am  Liadain 

Who  loved  Curithir. 

It  is  true  as  they  say. 

.  .  .  .The  music  of  the  forest 

Would  sing  to  me  when  with  Curithir, 

Together  with  the  voice  of  the  purple  sea." 

But  he  crosses  the  sea  and  Liadain  returns  to  die  on 
the  flagstone  on  which  he  had  been  wont  to  pray.  "Her 
soul  went  to  Heaven,  and  that  flagstone  was  put  over  her 
face  upon  her  tomb." 

6.   Parallel  Promulgation  of  Civilization  and 
Christianity 

We  know  the  names  of  a  great  many  of  these  missionary 
Irishmen,  but  thousands  perished  in  their  work  unknown 
to  fame,  for  their  numbers  were  great.  "They  overflowed 
the  Continent  with  their  successive  migrations"  remarks 
St.  Bernard,^  who,  though  a  poor  authority  on  Ireland, 
could  speak  with  knowledge  of  what  passed  on  the  Con- 
tinent. The  dangers  that  beset  them  were  manifold.  Eu- 
rope was  then  in  the  remaking. 

Famine,  invasion,  earthquake,  pestilence,  floods,  and 
civil  war  had  almost  blotted  out  the  landmarks  of  the 
ancient  world.  From  the  cities,  which  are  the  seats  of 
civilizations,  the  remnants  of  ancient  learning  had  sought 
refuge  in  the  caves  and  woods.  But  even  there  the  sav- 
agery and  rapacity  of  successive  invaders  sought  them  out 
to  burn  and  demolish.  In  a  period  when  men  thought 
mainly  of  rapine  and  murder  and  the  vilest  passions  were 
aroused  in  sustained  racial  conflict,  these  spiritual  Irish- 
men intervened  between  the  warring  elements  with  their 
prophetic  evangel  of  peace,  good  will,  love  of  kind,  self 
sacrifice,  asceticism,  and  renunciation  of  all  unnecessary 

iVita  Malach, 

99 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

material  things  in  a  laborious  ascent  to  the  higher  spiritual 
and  intellectual  life.  For  something  over  five  hundred 
years,  from  the  sixth  to  the  twelfth  century,  the  Irish  mis- 
sion continued.  It  was  a  work  of  singular  fruitfulness. 
There  has  perhaps  been  nothing  like  it  in  the  world  be- 
yond those  other  two  great  apostolates  by  which  civiliza- 
tion on  the  one  hand  and  Christianity  on  the  other  were 
introduced  into  the  minds  and  souls  of  men.  It  was  the 
singular  merit  and  fortune  of  the  Irish  mission  that  it  was 
at  once  an  apostolate  of  Christianity  and  an  apostolate  of 
civilization. 

Strange  parallels  v^ill  indeed  be  noted  by  those  who 
care  to  compare  the  methods  by  which  the  work  of  the 
Irish  mission  was  accomplished  and  the  results  that  sprang 
from  it,  with  the  methods  and  results  by  which  Chris- 
tianity was  first  promulgated  and  consolidated  and  by 
which  the  condition  of  civilization  was  gradually  superin- 
duced upon  the  western  world.  The  growth  of  civilization 
was  slow  and  arduous.  Homer  may  have  been  its  first 
visible  apostle,  but  unnumbered  ages  and  a  legion  of 
lesser  Homers  were  necessary  before  Homer  himself  was 
possible. 

Measuring  the  growth  of  civilization  from  Homer  we 
note  that  knowledge  was  dispensed  and  promoted  through 
the  lands  bordering  the  Mediterranean  by  the  precise  mis- 
sionary and  colonizing  methods  employed  by  its  Irish 
exponents  at  a  later  epoch.  But  the  Irish  missionary  had 
a  twofold  character  which  the  Greek  had  not.  We  have 
to  add  the  Christian  confessor  to  the  Athenian  sophist 
before  we  have  a  Columbanus,  or  an  Eriugena.  In  them 
Christianity  was  the  inspiration  and  in  large  part  the 
medium  by  which  they  communicated  their  culture;  and 
as  in  the  one  case  their  work  followed  the  natural  methods 

100 


Western  Civilization's  Base  of  Supply 

of  the  old  pagan  teachers,  so  in  the  other  they  consciously 
modeled  their  apostolate  on  the  pattern  provided  by  the 
early  Christian  teachers.  When  Christianity  came  into 
the  world  the  soil  had  already  been  prepared  to  receive 
it  and  from  Peter  and  Paul  to  Constantine  the  grafting 
of  the  revealed  doctrine  upon  the  civilization  of  the 
Roman  world  was  a  comparatively  brief  process.  Then 
Christianity  and  civilization  went  down  in  common  ruin 
and  it  was  left  to  a  new  race  of  men,  children  of  the 
farthest  western  isle,  to  renew  and  restore  both.  The  two 
had  traveled  from  East  to  West  by  different  routes  and 
at  different  times.  They  journeyed  back  from  West  to 
East  not  separately,  but  entwined  in  an  inseparable  union. 
No  jeweler's  product  resulting  from  the  fusing  of  precious 
metals,  for  which  Ireland  was  then  famous,  could  com- 
pare with  this  masterwork  of  spiritual  smithing  repre- 
sented by  the  union  through  the  force  of  the  active  Irish 
intellect  of  Christianity  with  the  ancient  learning.  The 
process  of  developing  that  union  went  on  till  it  appeared 
to  reach  its  full  expansion  in  the  thirteenth  century,  but 
the  ideal  of  Christian  civilization  first  became  a  reality 
on  Irish  soil  and  it  was  out  of  that  realized  ideal  that  the 
vast  organization  of  Christendom  grew. 


lOI 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  IRISH   KINGDOM   OF  SCOTLAND 

I.  Two-fold  Invasion  and  Conquest.  2.  Ireland  of  the  Sixth  Century. 
3.  Ancient  Pagan  and  Medieval  Christian  Ireland.  4.  The  Military 
Conquest  of  Scotland. 

I.  Twofold  Invasion  and  Conquest 

THE  conquest  which  the  invading  Gael  had  set  on 
foot  in  Ireland  in  the  sixth  century  B.  C.  and 
which  he  had  sealed  with  the  establishment  of  the 
Gaelic  monarchy  over  the  island  in  the  third  century  B. 
C.  had  already  thrown  its  powerful  tides  over  the  western 
coasts  and  islands  of  what  is  now  called  Scotland  when 
the  curtain  lifted  over  the  northern  scene  and  authentic 
history  began.  The  successive  steps  by  which  the  Celts 
from  the  Continent  established  their  authority  over  what 
later  came  to  be  called  the  five  kingdoms,  or  provinces,  of 
Ireland  are  veiled  by  the  uncertainty  and  conjecture 
that  precede  our  era.  But  the  processes  by  which  the  men 
of  Ireland  carried  that  authority  northward  over  the  sea 
and  added  to  the  five  kingdoms  the  Irish  kingdom  of 
Scotland  fall  well  within  the  historic  period  and  can  be 
followed  by  us  with  tolerable  clearness. 

This  later  Irish  conquest  was  not  merely  military  and 
national.  Civilization  has  moved  from  the  beginning  by 
devious  paths  and  these  first  tides  of  conquest  that  re- 
ceived their  immediate  impulse  from  Tara  and  Dalriada 
carried  with  them  an  accompanying  impulse  from  Athens, 
Jerusalem  and  Rome.  The  power  of  Roman  arms  that 
had  enveloped  first  the  Celts  of  Cisalpine  Gaul,  then 
Gaul  itself  and  then  Britain,  stopped  short  at  the  Irish 

102 


I 


The  Irish   Kingdom  of  Scotland 

Sea,  but  that  sea  presented  no  insuperable  obstacle  to  the 
diffusion  of  Roman  learning.  That  diffusion  was  made 
more  easy  by  the  settlement  of  Irish  colonies  within  the 
nominal  confines  of  the  Roman  Empire  itself.  What 
is  now  Wales  was,  as  will  later  be  shown,  an  Irish  colony 
during  the  great  part  of  the  period  of  the  Roman  occu- 
pation of  Britain.  An  exiled  Irish  prince,  presumably 
with  a  retinue,  sojourned  at  the  camp  of  Agricola  in 
Britain.*  Irish  legions  fought  side  by  side  with  Roman 
legions  in  Gaul  and  Germany.  Thus  numerous  channels 
of  intercourse  were  opened  up  between  Ireland  and  the 
empire  long  before  the  official  mission  of  Patrick  and  his 
colleagues. 

To  the  distinctive  civilization  which  Ireland  therefore 
had  developed  within  herself  as  the  most  clearly  pat- 
terned and  defined  entity  within  that  empire  of  the  Celts 
whose  limits  were  deeply  merged  in  an  incessant  ebb  and 
flow  with  the  empires  that  followed  each  other  on  the 
Mediterranean  coasts,  Ireland  was  able  to  add  to  her  store 
from  the  indescribable  wealth  of  the  Greco- Roman  mind 
almost  in  the  very  hour  of  its  ultimate  perfection.  To 
that  store  she  added  Incessantly  till  with  the  entire  Chris- 
tianization  of  the  island  Ireland  became  a  partaker  in  the 
full  illumination  that  produced  a  Constantine  and  a 
Boethius,  an  Augustine  and  a  Chrysostom. 

No  slight  Interest  therefore  attaches  to  the  twofold  in- 
vasion and  conquest  which  brought  the  northern  half  of 
Britain  simultaneously  within  the  empire  of  the  Gael 
and  the  empire  of  Greco-Roman  civilization.  In  its 
way  it  was  an  extension  of  that  process  of  envelopment 
by  which  Rome  had  brought  most  of  the  known  world 

1  "A^icola,  expulsum  seditlone  domestica,  unura  es  regulls  gentis,  ex- 
ceperat,  ac  specie  amicitiae  in  occasionera  retenebat."  (Tacitus,  Life  of  Agric- 
ola.) 

103 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

within  the  orbit  of  its  influence.  It  was  an  emanation 
from  an  Ireland  that  had  succeeded  Italy  as  the  home  of 
the  liberal  arts  and  that  alone  enjoyed  the  homogeneity 
and  repose  necessary  to  their  highest  cultivation.  It  repre- 
sented the  first  chapter  in  that  prolonged  cultural  enter- 
prise which  was  in  course  of  time  to  take  in  the  greater 
part  of  Europe.  It  exhibited  in  action  abroad  an  Ireland 
glowing  in  all  her  first  young-eyed  enthusiasm,  her  mind 
enraptured  by  the  wonders  of  the  ancient  classics,  her 
heart  thrilled  and  overcome  by  the  revelation  of  the  Chris- 
tian mysteries. 

2.   Ireland  of  the  Sixth  Century 

No  close  student  of  Irish  history  but  must  feel  that 
in  the  Ireland  of  the  sixth  century  he  is  in  the  presence 
of  one  of  those  movements  or  crises  rare  in  the  history 
of  civilization  and  destined  to  affect  its  whole  subsequent 
course.  Something  of  the  kind — and  it  is  the  supreme 
example — ran  its  course  in  Athens  in  the  fifth  century 
B.  C.  There  was  a  similar  manifestation  in  Rome  dur- 
ing the  century  that  preceded  our  era,  and  the  thirteenth 
century  saw  parallel  movements  in  France  and  Italy. 
Their  similitudes  may  be  noted  in  the  crucial  stages 
that  occur  in  the  life  of  the  individual  dividing  one 
portion  of  his  life  from  another.  Something  emotional 
comes  to  a  head,  there  is  a  coalescing  of  forces,  a  chemical 
explosion,  a  parturition,  a  blossoming  and  a  subsequent 
illumination  or  alteration  of  vision  that  is  enduring.  In 
the  case  of  nations  there  is  a  sudden  appearance  of  a  group 
or  procession  of  great  minds,  such  as  in  the  ordinary 
course  appear  only  at  long  intervals,  whose  works  mold' 
the  national  tongue  and  are  subsequently  appealed  to  as 
the  national  classics,  the  holy  writ  and  depository  of  their 

104 


The   Irish   Kingdom  of  Scotland 

revelations,  or  whose  work  results  in  the  foundation  of 
great  institutions  that  endure  for  centuries. 

In  the  Ireland  of  the  sixth  century  we  feel  ourselves  in 
the  presence  of  the  phenomena  of  some  such  crisis.  Had 
we  the  full  literature  of  Ireland  or  even  so  much  of  it 
as  has  been  proportionately  spared  in  other  countries,  we 
would  probably  find  therein  a  manifestation  of  the  human 
spirit  with  few  parallels  in  history.  But  even  the  precious 
fragments  left  to  us  give  clear  indications  of  what  we  have 
lost,  as  stray  pieces  of  Greek  sculpture  or  Egyptian  ma- 
sonry indicate  the  proportions  of  the  statue,  or  temple,  to 
which  they  belonged. 

In  the  case  of  Ireland  we  note  a  sudden  grouping  of 
men  who  from  one  cause  or  another — by  the  magic  of 
their  personality  or  the  strength  of  their  intellect  or  by 
the  prestige  acquired  through  the  establishment  of  great 
institutions,  or  the  initiation  and  guidance  of  great  move- 
ments set  influences  in  motion  that  gather  momentum  even 
after  their  deaths.  The  sixth  century  in  Ireland  was 
indeed  prolific  in  great  men.  Towering  above  them  all 
we  may  gaze  with  studious  eyes  on  the  mighty  Columcille, 
a  figure  for  all  its  strangeness  as  familiar  and  human  as 
any  during  the  whole  Middle  Ages.  Almost  contem- 
poraneous with  him  is  Columbanus,  the  most  energetic 
and  scholar-like  character  in  the  Europe  of  his  day,  whose 
work  on  the  Continent  proved  as  fateful  and  fruitful  as 
the  work  of  Columcille  in  Ireland.  In  the  early  years 
of  both  of  them  the  "Twelve  Apostles  of  Erin,"  in  whose 
company  Columcille  is  numbered,  lived  in  the  land. 
Ciaran^  who  founded  Clonmacnois,  Finnian  who  founded 

1  Claran  Is  credited  In  bardic  compositions  with  the  first  literary  recen- 
eion  of  the  Tain.  The  Leabar  na  h'Uldre  or  Book  of  the  Dun  Cow,  the  oldest 
big  book  in  th©  Irish  tongue,  which  also  contains  much  Iliadic  literature, 
including  the  Tain,  is  said  to  have  been  made  from  the  skin  of  the  dun 
cow  that  provided  the  student  Ciaran  with  milk,  but  is  probably  copied  from 
a  book  Eo  made. 

105 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

Moville,  Comgall  who  founded  Bangor,  Brendan^  who 
founded  Clonfert,  Finnian  who  founded  Clonard,  Bren- 
dan of  Birr  and  Cainnech  of  Ossory  who  figure  so  promi- 
nently in  Adamnan  as  the  personal  friends  of  Columcille 
— they  are  but  leading  figures  in  a  company  every  indi- 
vidual member  of  which  stood  forth  as  a  burning  beacon 
to  subsequent  ages.  Nor  was  Ireland  deficient  in  great 
kings  during  this  era.  Diarmid  II  who  occupied  the 
throne  of  Tara  for  a  score  of  years  and  Aedh  who  was 
sovereign  for  more  than  another  score  both  made  their 
reigns  memorable  in  Irish  history. 

It  was  in  the  course  of  the  sixth  century  that  Ireland's 
most  celebrated  schools  started  on  their  full  career.  It 
was  in  that  century  that  her  ancient  heroic  literature, 
maturing  towards  perfection  during  the  preceding  ages, 
was  cast  in  its  fulness  into  the  literary  form  in  which  we 
now  know  it,  and  that  the  literature  of  the  new  era,  trans- 
formed and  awakened  by  the  new  ideas  of  Christianity, 
blossomed  into  its  first  springtide.^  It  was  towards  the 
close  of  the  century  that  the  spiritual  and  material  forces 
of  the  nation  came  together  at  Drumceat  and  set  on  foot 
a  new  epoch,  reforming  the  bardic  institution,  reor- 
ganizing the  entire  educational  system  of  the  kingdom, 
and  establishing  a  free  Scotland  in  union  with  the  mother- 
land. It  was  during  this  century  that  the  overflowing 
energy  of  Ireland  began  to  deluge  Europe  with  a  mis- 
sionary activity  that  read  the  Irish  ferocity  of  enthusiasm 
and  self-abnegation  and  the  eloquence  and  daring  of  the 

1  The  copies  of  Brendan's  Legend,  which  are  preserved  in  Ireland  and  on 
the  Continent,  are  numerous.  It  is  still  disputed  whether  in  his  famous  Navi- 
gatio  he  reached  part  of  the  American  continent. 

2  Tho  valuable  fragments  have  been  preserved  from  the  sixth  century, 
the  more  striking  specimens  of  the  new  literature  left  to  us,  in  Latin  rather 
than  in  Irish,  belong  to  the  seventh.  Thus  Ciimmian  wrote  his  paschal  epistle 
in  634;  the  Irish  Augustin  or  .ffingus  wrote  his  striking  work  on  miracles, 
apparently  in  Carthage,  in  659;  while  Adamnan  brought  out  his  extant  works 
in  the  last  decade  of  the  seventh  century. 

ic6 


The  Irish   Kingdom  of  Scotland 

sinewy  Irish  intellect  into  the  early  history  of  every  coun- 
try in  Europe. 

It  has  been  noted  that  the  pedigrees  of  the  leading 
families  of  Ireland  converge  most  of  them  in  the  fourth 
century  and  in  the  family  of  Niall  of  the  Nine  Hostages. 
The  monarch  Niall  died  in  the  fifth  year  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury leaving  a  numerous  progeny  and  the  record  of  a  life 
filled  with  exploits  at  home  and  expeditions  abroad.  His 
reign  marked  the  beginning  of  an  epoch.  For  six  hundred 
years  the  descendants  of  Niall,  with  three  or  four  ex- 
ceptions, succeeded  each  other  in  the  sovereignty  of  Ire- 
land, a  marvelous  phenomenon  in  tumultuous  Europe. 
Three  of  the  sons  of  NialP  founded  respectively  the  king- 
dom of  Meath  and  the  principalities  of  Tyrconnell  and 
Tyrone,  which  combined  to  form  the  kingdom  of  Ulster. 
The  descendants  of  Brian,  the  brother  of  Niall,  delimited 
the  kingdom  of  Connaught.  It  is  clear  that  in  the  fifth 
and  the  sixth  century  Ireland  had  reached  a  condition  of 
political  development  that  no  other  country  in  Europe 
was  to  reach  for  centuries  later.  When  during  the  reign 
of  Diarmuid  the  triennial  or  septennial  parliament  of 
Ireland  was  held  in  Tara  for  the  last  time  the  curtain  was 
rung  down  on  a  drama  that  had  been  enacted  in  the  royal 
city  from  a  date  almost  contemporaneous  with  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Irish  monarchy  itself.  The  reign  of 
Diarmuid,  who  died  in  563,  lights  up  for  us  a  clear  picture 

iThey  were  Conaill  Crimthann;  Conaill  Gulban  (from  whom  Tyr  [Lat. 
terra]  Conaill,  "Country  of  Conaill");  and  Eoghan  (from  whom  Tyr  Eoghan 
or  Tyrone,  "Country  of  Eoghan").  Conaill  Gulban  gave  the  clan  name  to 
his  descendants  the  Cinel  Conaill,  the  family  to  which  Columcille  belonged. 
The  terms:  Clan,  Cinel,  Muintir,  Cin,  Ui  or  Hy,  are  all  affixes  signifying  kin- 
dred, race,  family,  descendants — as  Cinel  Airt,  race  of  Art;  Ui  or  Hy  Maine 
descendants  of  Maine.  They  were  the  forms  in  use  in  Ireland  and  Scotland 
before  the  establishment  of  surnames  In  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries. 
Mac  means  "son";  Ua  or  O,  "grandson";  Ni,  "granddaughter." 


107 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

in  Irish  history.  Diarmuid  himself^  bears  in  our  eyes  the 
lineaments  of  a  modern  constitutional  sovereign,  wielding 
power  with  justice  as  well  as  energy,  meting  out  the 
law  to  high  and  low  alike,  building  up  a  modus  vivendi 
with  the  church,  and  recognizing  instinctively  the  checks 
and  balances  which  defined  his  authority  in  the  Gaelic 
state.  His  interest  in  education  is  demonstrated  by  the 
munificence  and  support  he  extended  to  the  foundation 
of  Ciaran  at  Clonmacnois^  which  later  rivaled  Armagh 
as  the  national  university.  His  conflict  with  Columcille 
during  the  session  of  the  national  parliament  at  Tara 
which  led  to  the  battle  of  Culdreimhne  reveals  the 
monarch  rather  than  the  churchman  as  the  upholder  of 
the  law.  His  conflict  with  Ruadhan,  who,  like  Colum- 
cille, is  numbered  among  the  Fathers  of  the  Irish  church 
and  whose  ceremonial  cursing  of  Tara  figures  in  Irish 
history  as  an  element  in  the  decline  and  fall  of  the  royal 
city,  likewise  shows  up  to  us  the  saint  rather  than  Diar- 
muid as  the  fount  of  trouble  and  discord.  It  seems  to 
have  been  at  the  instance  of  Diarmuid  that  the  Synod 
of  Tailtenn  was  called,  which  sought  to  excommunicate 
Columcille  for  the  bloodguiltiness  of  Culdreimhne.  It 
is  impossible  to  follow  the  events  of  the  reign  of  Diarmuid 
and  the  consequences  that  issued  from  the  convention  of 
Drumceat  without  feeling  that  Ireland  during  this  period 
with  its  ancient  parliament,  its  system  of  fivefold 
sovereignty  with  the  high  monarch  as  the  head  of  all, 

iThere  is  an  ancient  Irish  life  of  King  Diarmuid  II,  MS.  H.  2.16,  Trinity 
College,  Dublin.  His  reign  is  remarlcable  as  the  one  in  which  Tara  ceased  to 
be  the  legislative  capital.  His  father  was  Fergus  Cerbaill,  son  of  Conaill 
Crinthann,  and  grandson  of  Niall  of  the  Nine  Hostages.  After  his  death  his 
head  was  conveyed  to  Clonmacnois  and  his  body  was  burled  at  Connor.  See 
Reeves,  Life  of  St  Col.,  by  Adamnan,  p.  67. 

3  In  one  of  the  panels  of  the  great  cross  at  Clonmacnois  (A.  D.  916),  the 
clean-shaven  Ciaran  in  his  long  robe  and  the  bearded  prince  Diarmuid  in 
short  tunio  are  clearly  shown  in  the  act  of  setting  up  the  tall  cross,  which 
was  the  first  post  of  the  founder. 

io8 


The  Irish   Kingdom  of  Scotland 


with  the  kings  of  Leinster,  Connaught,  Ulster  and  Mun- 
ster  directly  beneath  him,  with  its  lower  aristocracy  of 
princes,  nobles  and  chiefs,  all  bound  up  with  the  free 
population  and  clans  by  ties  of  close  kindred,  all  recogniz- 
ing the  national  laws,  synods  and  parliaments,  all  speaking 
the  same  tongue  and  delighting  in  the  same  literary  heir- 
looms, had  evolved  a  political  state  as  superior  to  anything 
then  known  as  her  culture  was  superior. 

The  ancient  safeguards  which  restrained  the  power  of 
the  sovereign,  so  often  cited  as  a  reproach  by  foreign 
critics,  merely  show  that  the  individual  unit  in  the 
medieval  Irish  state  had  developed  a  sense  of  personal 
responsibility  and  freedom  which  the  secularly  opprest 
subjects  in  other  lands  did  not  acquire  till  modern  times. 
Compare  for  example  the  political  civilization  of  Ireland 
in  the  sixth  century  with  the  political  civilization  of 
England  in  the  sixteenth,  three  centuries  after  the  passing 
of  Magna  Carta.^  In  the  sixteenth  century  the  lawyers 
of  Henry  VIII  gravely  debated  whether  the  English 
people  were  the  personal  property  or  merely  the  subjects 
of  the  sovereign.  In  sober  fact  they  were  his  personal 
chattels.  Abject  and  terrorstricken  slaves,  neither  whose 
bodies  nor  souls  nor  thoughts  were  legally  their  own, 
watching  in  panic  eagerness  the  mere  nod  of  king  or 
queen,  anxious  only  to  obey  the  royal  will,  which  was  the 
actual  fount  of  law,  of  honor  and  of  punishment,  the 
helplessness  of  the  English  under  the  Tudors  turned  the 
kingdom  into  a  worse  than  Oriental  despotism.  Within 
the  space  of  a  single  generation  the  English  people — 
every  one  of  whom  was,  by  the  laws  of  Henry  VIII,  to 
which  their  parliament  assented,  theoretically  a  traitor, 

1  The  value  of  the  Magna  Carta  was  more  apparent  to  the  kings'  jesters 
than  to  anybody  else.     Pew  kings  paid  much  attention  to  it.     See  p.  296. 

109 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

liable  to  the  death  penalty,  by  the  mere  act  of  living 
and  thinking — at  the  command  of  the  sovereign  changed 
their  religion  three  different  times.  The  popular  agitation 
furnished  a  spectacle  of  national  and  individual  cowardice 
that  set  neither  form  nor  limit  to  its  servility.  It  is  to  the 
honor  of  Ireland  that  not  even  in  the  sixth  century  could 
absolutism  thus  ride  roughshod  over  the  national  spirit. 
Even  at  that  early  period  the  individual  in  the  clan  and 
in  the  kingdom,  claiming  kinship  v^ith  Its  rulers,  recog- 
nized himself  as  a  unit  in  a  great  patriarchal  organization, 
and  yielded  obedience  to  the  law  and  honor  to  the  head 
of  the  State,  while  holding  inviolate  his  personal  sense  of 
freedom  and  dignity. 

3.  Ancient  Pagan  and  Medieval  Christian  Ireland 

Ireland  is  the  only  one  of  the  northern  nations  that  was 
not  first  civilized  by  Christianity  and  indeed  it  is  one  of 
the  boasts  of  Irishmen  that  there  has  never  been  a  period 
in  their  ascertainable  history  when  they  were  not  a  civi- 
lized people.  The  distinctive  old  Irish  civilization  grew 
out  of  the  same  soil  and  was  fed  by  the  same  sap  that 
gave  life  and  birth  to  Greco-Roman  civilization.  Its 
inner  strength  and  soundness  are  illustrated  by  the  carry- 
ing forward  from  a  remote  antiquity  to  the  age  of  Greek 
and  Roman  letters  the  masterpieces  of  Irish  literature 
on  which  the  subsequent  literature  of  Ireland  levied  con- 
stant tribute.  This  was  a  tremendous  feat.  It  placed 
Ireland  at  a  single  bound  among  the  literary  nations  of 
antiquity,  and  in  the  field  of  heroic  literature  side  by 
side  with  Greece  alone.  For  Ireland's  literature  is  not 
like  Roman  literature,  a  reproduction  and  imitation  of 
Greek  literature,  but  a  parallel  growth.    In  her  ursgeula, 

no 


The   Irish   Kingdom  of  Scotland 

or  sagas,  she  has  what  even  Rome  has  not,  a  literature 
of  heroic  Iliads  that  is  the  independent,  unadulterated, 
original  creation  in  antiquity  of  the  heart  and  lips  of  her 
people.  The  northern  nations,  apparently  as  free  as  she, 
as  unmolested  by  Roman  power,  failed  to  accomplish 
this  tour  de  force.  It  invests  Ireland  with  a  supreme 
glory.  It  marked  her  from  the  beginning  as  a  nation  of 
destiny  and  served  as  a  fitting  prelude  to  that  medieval 
work  which  was  to  continue  as  an  enduring  foundation  to 
subsequent  civilization. 

By  the  sixth  century  Greco-Roman  and  the  old  Irish 
culture  had  become  inseparably  blended  and  a  new  Chris- 
tian polity  had  given  breadth  and  stature  to  the  older 
national  entity  which  unassisted  Irish  experience  had 
created.  In  Ireland  alone  are  we  enabled  to  look  on  the 
old  life  and  the  new — on  that  ultra-world  which  knew 
neither  Roman  nor  Greek  and  on  that  world  again  trans- 
formed by  Greek  and  Roman  learning. 

Classical  writers  and  the  unknown  authors  of  the  old 
Irish  epics  reveal  to  us  the  unity  of  the  civilization  of 
the  Celts,  more  clearly  developed  and  defined  in  Ireland 
than  elsewhere.  We  see  them  eating,  drinking,  playing 
and  fighting.  We  note  their  great  numbers  and  powerful 
physique;  the  magnificence  of  their  funerals;  their  use 
of  the  chariot;  their  splendid  horsemanship;  their  races 
and  cattle-spoils;  the  ferocity  of  their  onset  In  battle;  the 
retinue  around  their  princes;  their  astonishing  apparel — 
dyed  tunics,  flowered  with  colors,  fantastic,  flaming  cloaks, 
breeches,  and  wondrous  buckles  and  ornaments  of  gold. 
We  note  their  haughty  self-confidence,  as  in  the  colloquy 
with  Alexander,  their  chivalry  in  combat,  their  figurative 


III 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

rhetoric,  and  their  belief  in  an  Elysium  and  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul.* 

It  is  a  changed  world  into  which  the  literature  of 
medieval  Ireland  ushers  us.  The  old  magnificence  is 
there,  but  it  is  a  secondary  theme.  The  great  military 
encampments  have  been  eclipsed  by  the  sudden  mustering 
of  new  legionaries — champions  of  wisdom,  milltes  Christi, 
athletes  of  asceticism,  sages,  prophets  and  saints.  Armagh 
has  taken  the  place  of  Tara  of  the  Kings,  Bangor  has  be- 
come the  rival  of  Tailtenn,  Clonard  has  out-gloried 
Emain-Macha.  A  living  voice  from  out  of  the  new 
strongholds  comes  to  us  across  the  space  of  i,ioo  years: 

"Tara's  mighty  burgh  perished  at  the  death  of  her  princes:  with 
a  multitude  of  venerable  champions  the  great  height  of  Machae 
(Armagh)  abides. 

"Right  vahant  Loigure's  pride  has  been  quenched — ^great  the 
anguish:  Patrick's  name,  splendid,  famous,  this  is  on  the  increase. 

"The  Faith  has  grown :  it  will  abide  till  Doomsday :  guilty  pagans 
who  are  carried  off,  their  raths  are  not  dwelt  in, 

"Rathcroghan  it  has  vanished  with  Ailill  offspring  of  victory: 
fair  the  sovereignty  over  princes  that  there  is  in  the  monastery 
of  Clonmacnois. 

"Choirs  lasting,  melodious,  around  Ciaran,  if  thou  shouldst  men- 
tion him;  with  the  victorious  tumult  of  great  Clonmacnois."^ 

New  ideals  have  taken  the  place  of  the  old.  Cattle- 
spoils  give  way  to  contests  of  dialectical  valor.  Searches 
for  deserts  in  the  ocean  succeed  to  martial  expeditions 
abroad.    The  new  literature  is  both  in  Irish  and  in  Latin, 

1  The  chief  epics  of  the  Irish  Heroic  cycle  are:  The  Tain;  Deirdre  and  the 
Sons  of  Uisneach;  Conchobar's  Vision;  The  Battle  of  Rosnaree;  Conchobar's 
Tragedy;  The  Conception  of  Cuchulain;  The  Training:  of  Cuchulain;  The  Woo- 
ing of  Elmer;  Death  of  Conlaoch;  Cuchulain's  Adventure  at  the  Boyne;  Intoxi- 
cation of  the  Ultonians;  Bricriu's  Banquet;  Elmer's  Jealousy;  Pining  of 
Cuchulain;  Conaill's  Red  Rout  and  the  Lay  of  the  Heads;  Capture  of  the  Sidh; 
Phantom  Chariot  of  Cuchulain;  Death  of  Cuchulain;  Recovery  of  the  Tain 
Through  the  Resurrection  of  Fergus.  The  Heroic  cr  Cuchulain  cycle  took  its 
shaping  In  the  first  century,  B.  C.  It  Is  later  than  the  Mythological  cycle 
and  earlier  than  the  Fenian  cycle  of  epics. 

2Felire  of  ^ngus  (c.  800  A,  D.),  edited  by  Whitley  Stokes,  pp.  24-5. 

112 


The   Irish   Kingdom  of  Scotland 

and  the  alteration  of  outlook  and  purpose  is  fundamental. 
iWhile  the  old  literary  tradition  marches  forward,  draw- 
ing perpetually  from  the  original  fountain,  the  new  litera- 
ture talks  the  accent  and  thought  of  the  empire.  It  has 
become  practical :  the  purpose  is  not  any  longer  primarily 
to  thrill,  to  terrify,  or  to  amuse,  but  is  a  call  to  action, 
to  reformation  and  to  sacrifice.  Its  heroes  are  not  gods 
and  fighting  men.  They  are  monastic  founders  and 
scholars,  poets  and  philosophers,  legislators  and  saints. 
The  biographies  of  the  distinguished  Irishmen  of  the 
epoch  constitute  in  themselves  a  volume  of  literature  that 
reconstructs  for  us  the  old  Irish  world  and  peoples 
it  with  living  men  and  women  in  whom  legend  and  won- 
der commingle  with  ripe  scholarship  and  complete  in- 
tellectual integrity. 

4.   The  Military  Conquest  of  Scotland 

It  was  from  the  midst  of  an  Ireland  thus  intimately 
known  to  us  and  thus  carrying  on  the  tradition  of  Irish 
as  well  as  Greek  and  Roman  culture  that  the  men  who 
conquered,  colonized  and  Christianized  the  northern  half 
of  Britain  went  forth  to  their  work.  Little  more  than 
an  outline  is  necessary  to  delineate  the  steps  by  which  the 
military  conquest  of  Scotland  was  completed. 

Irish  Scots  had  crossed  the  Strath-na-Maolle  of  the 
Gaels,  the  northern  arm  of  the  Mare  Hibernicum  of  the 
Romans,  and  the  North  Channel  of  modern  days,  and 
settled  in  that  part  of  Caledonia  which  the  Romans  called 
Vespasiania,  some  hundreds  of  years  before  Angle,  or 
Saxon,  or  Jute,  had  appeared  on  the  rim  of  civilization. 
The  Venerable  Bede  refers  to  the  migration:  "In  course 
of  time  Britain,  besides  the  Britons  and  Picts,  received  a 
third  nation,  Scotia,  who,  issuing  from  Hibernia,  under 

9  113 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of   Britain 

the  leadership  of  Riada,  secured  for  themselves,  either 
by  friendship  or  the  sword,  settlements  among  the  Picts 
which  they  still  possess."^ 

From  at  least  the  second  century  onwards  Irish  expedi- 
tions crossed  from  Ireland  into  North  Britain  and  gradu- 
ally conquered  and  colonized  the  southwestern  parts  of 
the  country.  From  the  fourth  century  onwards  stronger 
Irish  forces  crossed  over  and  gradually  extended  the 
conquest  of  the  country,  the  larger  part  of  which  was 
in  the  hands  of  the  Picts.  Towards  the  close  of  the  fifth 
century,  to  follow  the  chronology  of  Tigerneach,  a  power- 
ful Irish  expedition  crossed  over  into  Caledonia  under 
three  brothers,  the  princes  Fergus,  Loarn  and  Angus,  sons 
of  Ere,  of  the  royal  house  of  Ireland,  and  established 
themselves  in  what  is  now  Argyleshire,  Bute  and  the 
Hebrides.  The  Gaelic  form  of  Argyle  is  Airer-Gaedhil, 
that  is  the  territory  of  the  Gael,  or  Irish,  and  the  name 
is  therefore  a  living  record  of  these  early  colonizations. 

Fergus  Mor  became  first  king  of  the  Gaels  or  Irish 
now  settled  in  Caledonia  and  his  death  is  recorded  by 
Tigerneach,  the  Irish  annalist,  at  the  year  502.  Fergus 
was  succeeded  by  a  long  list  of  kings,  the  most  conspicuous 
of  whom  was  Cinead,  or  Kenneth,  mac  Alpin  (surnames 
were  not  in  vogue  at  that  early  time  and  the  "mac"  here, 

1  Hist.  EccL  This  account  by  Bede  is  true  only  in  so  far  as  it  indicates 
that  the  Irish  migration  to  Scotland  was  gradual  and  did  not  begin  under  the 
sons  of  Ere.  No  Irish  leader  named  Riada  headed  an  Irish  migration  to  Scot- 
land. Riada,  the  ancestor  of  Fergus,  lived  three  centuries  earlier.  It  was 
about  the  year  470,  according  to  Tigerneach,  when  the  sons  of  Ere,  Fergus 
and  his  brothers  went  from  Ireland  to  Scotland.  Fergus  was  king  of  Dal 
Riada  in  the  northeast  corner  of  Ireland.  The  crossing  meant  that  the 
princes  established  their  rule  over  the  Irish  settlements  of  that  region.  Irish 
genealogies  show  that  the  same  dynasty  and  the  same  kings  ruled  Dal  Riada 
in  Ireland  and  the  Irish  colonists  in  Scotland  till  the  Norse  occupied  Can- 
tyre  and  thus  cut  off  the  Irish  territory  from  the  Scottish  territory  in  which 
the  kings  of  Dal  Riada  had  become  resident.  When  this  separation  took 
place,  the  title  of  "King  of  Dal  Riada"  was  abandoned.  The  last  king  who 
bears  the  title  in  the  annals  is  Donn  Coirci,  792;  and  in  794,  the  same  annals 
record  "the  devastation  of  all  the  islands  of  Britain  by  the  heathen."  (Mac- 
Neill,  Phases  of  Irish  History,  195.) 

114 


The   Irish   Kingdom  of  Scotland 


without  the  capital,  means  the  "son"  of  Alpin  literally), 
who  in  the  year  842  conquered  the  whole  kingdom  of 
the  Picts,  carrying  his  victorious  Irish  forces  as  far  north 
as  Caithness  and  to  the  south  over  the  Tweed  and  well 
into  England.  In  the  reign  of  Stephen,  King  of  England, 
the  Irish  Scots  in  Britain  held  three  northern  countries 
of  what  is  now  England,  while  such  names  as  that  of 
Gospatric,  Earl  of  Northumbria,  show  how  deeply  the 
Irish  invasion  had  penetrated  to  the  south. 

Sixty  kings  of  the  Irish  race  reigned  in  Alba,  or  Scot- 
land, during  a  period  of  nearly  eight  centuries,  from  the 
time  of  King  Fergus,  A.  D.  502,  to  the  death  of  Alexander 
III  in  1286  A.  D.  During  that  period  Irish  culture  and 
the  Irish  language  became  established  over  all  Scotland, 
and  the  intercourse  between  Scotland  and  the  other  Irish 
provinces  of  Munster,  Connaught,  Ulster,  Leinster  and 
Meath,  was  as  constant  as  was  the  intercourse  between 
the  inland  provinces  themselves. 

So  Scotia  Major,  as  Ireland  was  sometimes  called,  and 
Scotia  Minor  formed  a  single  country  and  nation  of  six 
provinces,  or  kingdoms,  each  with  separate  kings,  of 
whom  one  was  the  high-king,  or  Ardrigh,  each  speaking 
the  same  tongue,  and  each  looking  back  on  a  national  his- 
tory common  to  them  all.  In  course  of  time  the  influence 
of  the  Francii,  or  Norman  and  Angevin  French  who 
under  William  the  Conqueror  had  made  themselves  mas- 
ters of  England  crossed  the  English  border  northwards 
into  the  Scot  Lothians,  with  first  the  French  and  later  the 
English  language  as  medium,  just  as  Norman  French 
influence  almost  simultaneously  crossed  the  sea  westward 
into  Leinster.  But  centuries  had  yet  to  pass  before  English 
was  to  displace  Irish  as  the  language  of  the  Scottish 
people. 

IIS 


CHAPTER  X 

COLUMCILLE,  APOSTLE  OF  SCOTLAND 

I.  Archpresbyter  of  the  Gael.    2.  A  Christian  Cuchulain.     3.  The  Facts 
of  His  Life.    4.  His  Career  as  Monastic  Founder. 

I.  Archpresbyter  of  the  Gael 

IN  this  conquest  of  the  northern  half  of  Britain  the 
role  of  spiritual  proconsul  was  played  by  the  famous 
Columcille,  "the  high  saint  and  high  sage,  the  son 
chosen  of  God,  even  the  archpresbyter  of  the  island  of  the 
Gael,  the  brand  of  battle  set  forth  with  the  divers  talents 
and  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost."  Marvelous  indeed  are 
the  characterizations  which  the  skilled  medieval  writers 
apply  to  this  prince  of  the  Irish  royal  line,  who  appears 
to  have  been  born  also  lo  the  natural  purple  of  intellect 
and  spirit  that  has  marked  from  the  beginning  the  born 
leader  of  men.  Sage,  prophet,  poet — dove  of  the  cell — 
lovable  lamp,  pure  and  clear — silvery  moon — a  diadem 
on  every  train — a  harp  without  a  base  chord — a  child 
noble,  venerable,  before  God  and  man — a  child  of  the 
King  of  Heaven  and  earth — man  of  grace — physician 
of  the  heart  of  every  age — manchild  of  long-sided  Ethne 
— there  never  was  born  to  the  Gael,  we  are  told,  offspring 
nobler  or  wiser  or  of  better  kin  than  he — there  hath  not 
come  of  them  another  who  was  meeker  or  humbler  or 
lowlier.  *'Noble  insooth  was  Columcille's  kindred  as  re- 
gards the  world;  for  of  the  kindred  of  Conaill,  son  of 
Niall,  was  he.  By  genealogy  he  had  the  natural  right 
to  the  kingship  of  Ireland  and  it  would  have  been  offered 
to  him  had  he  not  put  it  from  him  for  the  sake  of  God." 

116 


Columcille,  Apostle  of  Scotland 


"Angelic  in  appearance,  graceful  in  speech,  holy  in  work," 
as  Adamnan  describes  him,  it  is  clear  that  this  remarkable 
figure  made  a  deep  impress  on  the  imagination  of  his 
age.  With  a  score  of  streamlets  from  Ireland's  bluest 
blood  uniting  in  his  veins,*  richly  endowed  in  body  and 
mind,  of  great  height  and  powerful  in  physique,  with 
hair  curling  like  the  ringlets  of  a  Greek  god,  with  face 
broad  and  comely,  eyes  gray,  large,  and  luminous,  a  voice 
resonant,  musical  and  deep,  that  could  be  heard  at  the 
distance  of  fifteen  hundred  paces,  a  lionhearted  being 
whose  energy,  glowing  with  steady  fire,  would  not  permit 
him  to  spend  even  the  space  of  an  hour  without  some 
occupation,  Columcille  left  an  astonishing  record  of  per- 
formance behind  him  and  still  looms  over  the  fourteen 
centuries  that  divide  us  as  one  of  the  most  impressive 
figures  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

In  his  character  and  in  his  extraordinary  career  we 
seem  to  see  embodied,  more  than  in  any  other  figure,  the 
aspiration,  the  passion,  the  exaltation,  the  energy  of  the 
Ireland  of  the  sixth  century.  Romance  and  poetry  speed- 
ily made  him  their  own.    Columbanus  was  a  contempo- 

1 A  member  of  the  reigning  family  in  Ireland  and  closely  allied  to  that 
of  Dalriada  in  Scotland,  he  was,  as  Reeves  notes,  eligible  to  the  sovereignty 
of  his  own  country.  His  half-uncle,  Muircertach,  was  on  the  throne  when 
he  waa  born,  and  he  lived  through  the  successive  reigns  of  his  cousins,  King 
Domnaill,  King  Fergus,  and  King  Eocaid;  of  his  first  cousins,  King  Ainmiro 
and  King  Baedan;  and  of  King  Aed,  son  of  Ainmire.  His  immediate  lineage 
stands  as  follows: 
Niall  of  the  Nine  Hostages  Earc  Echin,  7th  in 


379-405 


Conaill  Gulban,  ancestor  of 
the  Cinel  Conaill,  d.  464 


Lioarn,  1st  king  of 
Scot  Dalriada 


Fergus  Cennfada- 


-Erca 


descent  from 

Cathaeir  Mor, 

A.  D.  120 

I 
Nave,  or  Noe 


Dimma 


Fedlimid 


Aetnea 


COLUMCILLE 

117 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

rary  of  Columcille,  and  outside  of  Ireland  accomplished 
a  work  paralleling  that  of  Columcille  within  the  Gaed- 
haltacht.  He  was  Columcille's  junior  by  twenty-two 
years.  He  was  twenty  years  old  when  Colurncille  set  out 
for  lona.  He  sailed  for  the  Continent  when  Columcille 
was  twenty-two  years  in  lona.  He  himself  was,  like 
Columcille,  the  embodiment  of  the  spirit  and  striving, 
the  awakened  heart  and  developing  intellect  of  his  coun- 
try, and  he  made  an  extraordinary  impression  abroad  on 
the  age  in  which  he  lived.  But  Columbanus,  remarkable 
as  his  personality  was,  remained  totally  unknown  in 
Ireland.  Marvelous  as  were  his  gifts,  he  cut  absolutely 
no  figure  in  Irish  history  and  his  career  and  personality 
appear  commonplace  compared  with  the  career  and  the 
personality  of  Columcille.  We  have  a  life  of  Columbanus, 
written  by  one  of  his  immediate  disciples,*  just  as  we  have 
such  a  life  of  Columcille.  We  have  Latin  epistles  written 
by  the  hand  of  Columbanus,  as  well  as  Latin  poems,  rules, 
instructions,  sermons,  directions,  wonderful  for  their  age. 
From  the  authentic  voice  of  Columcille  himself  there  is 
little  that  does  not  touch  on  the  unearthly  or  that  is  not 
in  meter,  Irish  or  Latin.  In  the  stories  that  have  come 
down  to  us  concerning  him  the  poetical  element  is  almost 
always  put  forward  in  front  of  the  practical,  and  in  few 
episodes  of  his  career  is  he  ever  shown  as  playing  a 
subordinate  part.  He  is  ever  the  high  hero,  the  victor, 
the  champion,  the  darling  of  the  gods,  the  idol  of  men 
and  women,  the  child  of  fortune,  born  to  command  in 
heaven  and  in  hell  as  well  as  upon  the  earth.  Columcille 
represents  the  poetry,  as  Columbanus  maybe  said  to  repre- 
sent the  prose,  of  the  Ireland  of  the  sixth  century. 

1  Jonas  in  Migne,  Pat.  Lat.,  LXXXVII,  Cols.  1009-46.  Both  Columbanus 
and  Columcille  were  more  fortunate  than  St.  Patrick  in  respect  to  their 
biographers'  nearness  to  their  own  time.  The  earliest  reference  to  St. 
Patrick  is  in  the  paschal  epistle  of  Cummian  (634) — "Sanctus  Patricius  papa 
noster." 

ii8 


Columcille,  Apostle  of  Scotland 

2.  A  Christian  Cuchulain 

The  atmosphere  of  idolatry  which  wrapped  Columcille 
round  in  life  crystallized  into  something  of  an  apotheosis 
in  death.  He  became  the  Christian  Cuchulain  of  the 
Irish  race,  the  wonder-working  miles  Christi,  whose  ex- 
ploits performed  against  the  powers  of  darkness  rivaled 
those  of  the  pagan  hero  who  in  an  earlier  day  had  been 
chief  among  "the  curled  and  rosy  youth  of  the  kingdom." 
The  legends  that  grew  around  his  name  took  the  epic 
note  and  form  as  they  passed  from  mouth  to  mouth  and 
found  credence  even  in  the  ears  of  the  scholars.  Adam- 
nan,  the  chief  biographer  of  Columcille,  was  a  man  of 
cultivated  judgment,  steeped  in  Roman  learning.  In 
preparing  the  life  of  his  celebrated  kinsman  he  took  pains- 
taking care,  he  tells  us,  in  endeavoring  to  sift  the  false 
from  the  true.* 

But  the  popular  apotheosis  of  Columcille  also  took 
captive  the  Imagination  of  a  man  as  capable  as  Adamnan. 
After  the  battle  of  Troy  the  poets  In  the  Greek-speak- 
ing towns  collected  the  traditions  and  adventures  of  the 
heroes  and  made  a  diversion  of  them  for  the  public. 
From  such  material  and  through  such  processes  was  the 
Iliad  born  and  from  parallel  materials  and  processes  were 
developed  the  epics  of  the  Irish  heroic  cycle,  In  which 
the  youthful  hound  of  Ulster  plays  the  high  role.  Adam- 
nan's  life  of  Columcille,  despite  Its  intentionally  historical 
character,  occupies  In  the  Christian  field  a  place  com- 
parable to  these  stories  in  the  pagan  field.  His  work  is 
a  Christian  epic  in  which  the  accomplishments  of  Colum- 
cille as  scribe,  statesman,  missionary,  monastic  founder 

iln  the  second  preface  to  his  work  he  tells  us  that  it  is  the  substance 
of  narratives  learned  from  his  predecessors  and  is  founded  either  on  written 
authorities  anterior  to  his  own  time  or  on  what  he  learned  himself  from 
ancient  men  then  living.     He  talks  of  "witnesses,  as  the  law  requires." 

119 


Ireland  and  die   Making  of   Britain 

and  scholar  are  indeed  revealed  to  us,  but  only  inciden- 
tally and  in  the  background  and  environment  of  the  story. 
In  the  foreground  v^^e  see  Columcille  performing  in  the 
miraculous  role  in  which  that  age  loved  first  to  view 
him,  and  indeed  if  in  the  pagan  literature  of  Ireland  we 
recognize  the  introduction  here  and  there,  by  the  hand 
of  the  Christian  litterateur  of  a  later  age,  elements  foreign 
to  its  first  shaping,  it  may  be  said  with  truth  in  the  nar- 
rative of  Adamnan  we  find  in  the  formation  of  character 
and  episode  that  love  of  romance  and  high  superhuman 
exploit  cultivated  by  pagan  epic  from  a  remote  antiquity. 

In  the  Tain  we  watch  the  high  and  vehement  Cuchulain 
accomplishing  prodigies  of  valor.  Single-handed  he  holds 
the  ford  against  the  army  of  Queen  Maeve.  Hovering 
around  them  unseen  all  day  he  kills  as  many  as  a  hundred 
of  them  in  the  night  with  his  sling.  His  anger  at  the 
boiling-point  melts  the  snow  around  him.  With  his 
vigorous  edge-stroke  he  could  at  will  take  ofif  all  the  hair 
of  an  opponent  from  poll  to  forehead  and  from  ear  to 
ear  as  clean  as  with  a  razor  without  drawing  blood.  With 
his  oblique  transverse  stroke  he  could  divide  an  antagonist 
into  three  equal  segments  falling  simultaneously  upon 
the  ground.  He  conquers  the  bird-shaped  demons  of  the 
air,  the  monstrous  plaguing  forms  of  the  war-goddess 
Morrigan,  and  the  spells  of  the  magician  Cailtin  and 
his  twenty-seven  sons.  The  tracks  of  the  wheels  of  his 
chariot  circling  round  the  Connaught  army  rise  up  like 
fortifications  as  he  spreads  havoc  amid  the  uncounted  host. 

Hardly  a  whit  inferior  to  Cuchulain  in  his  own  field  as 
wonder-worker  Columcille  is  pictured  in  the  pages  of 
Adamnan.  His  wisdom  was  supernal  like  the  valor  of 
Cuchulain.  "Through  a  wonderful  experience  of  his 
inner  soul  he  beheld  the  universe  drawn  together  and 

1 20 


Columcille,  Apostle  of  Scotland 


laid  open  to  his  sight  as  in  one  ray  of  the  sun."  He  healed 
diseases.  He  raised  the  dead  to  life.  He  subdued  the 
furious  rage  of  wild  beasts.  He  expelled  by  a  word  and 
sign  hosts  of  malignant  demons.  He  calmed  the  surging 
waves  and  changed  the  direction  of  the  winds.  Celestial 
light  played  around  him  and  celestial  legions  descended 
to  keep  him  company.  He  saw  the  souls  of  men  ascending 
to  the  highest  heavens,  or  descending  among  the  demons 
of  hell.  He  looked  into  the  future  and  foretold  the 
destinies  of  men.  His  voice  breathed  incessant  prophecy 
and  preternatural  revelation. 

Yet  beneath  all  this  aura  of  legend  and  wonder  there 
is  a  solid  accompaniment  of  fact  and  historic  reality 
which  has  preserved  Columcille  to  us  as  a  living,  breath- 
ing, human  personality,  whose  course  from  the  cradle 
to  the  grave  is  laid  bare  to  us  with  a  distinctness  lacking 
in  any  other  career  during  the  early  Middle  Ages.  No 
legendary  dim  figure  is  Columcille  but  a  great  and  strik- 
ing historical  character  whose  work  constitutes  a  fact 
in  history  as  enduring  and  indissoluble  as  that  of  Cassar. 
Legend  made  Columcille  its  own  as  it  made  Charlemagne 
its  own.  But  as  Charlemagne  had  his  Einhard  as  well  as 
hisTrouvere,  so  Columcille  had  numerous  witnesses  to  the 
realities  of  his  life  as  well  as  to  its  supposed  wonders. 
Nobody  can  doubt  that  Adamnan,  for  example,  described 
the  phenomena  and  incidents  of  his  patron's  life  as  they 
appeared  to  those  who  were  living  observers.  It  is  only 
in  the  supernatural  agencies  to  which  he  ascribes  natural 
acts  and  processes  that  he  goes  beyond  the  record.  The 
facts  themselves  and  their  environments  may  be  accepted; 
the  explanation  of  the  facts  often  indicates  the  line  where 
pious  fancy  has  superimposed  the  element  of  legend  on 
reality. 

121 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

3.   The  Facts  of  His  Life 

Hardly  does  Columcille  appear  to  have  been  in  his 
grave  before  his  friends  and  admirers  began  to  set  down 
the  facts  of  his  life  for  the  benefit  of  posterity.  Even 
in  his  life  Dalian  Forgaill,  the  poet  laureate  of  Ireland, 
v^rote  a  poetic  eulogy  of  his  work  at  Drumceat,  still  with 
us  in  its  archaic  form  and  heavily  annotated/  Mura, 
his  companion,  and  Baithene,  his  intimate  and  immediate 
successor,  wrote  memoirs  of  him.  Cuimine,  seventh  ab- 
bot of  lona  (657-669)  wrote  a  treatise  on  his  virtues 
which  has  been  preserved.^  The  work  of  Adamnan,  who 
wrote  c.  691-3,  has  been  described  as  "the  most  complete 
piece  of  such  biography  that  all  Europe  can  boast  of, 
not  only  at  so  early  a  period,  but  even  through  the  whole 
Middle  Ages."^    To  this  succeeded  a  life  by  John  of  Tin- 

lAmra  Choluim  Chilli  by  Dalian  Forgaill,  ed.  and  transl.  by  O'Beirne 
Crowe,  Dublin,  1871. 

2  It  is  partly  included  in  the  third  book  of  Adamnan's  work,  but  has  been 
independently  preserved. 

spinkerton.  Enquiry,  Pref.  Vol.  1  p.  xlviii  (Edinb.  1814).  A  copy  of  this 
work  of  Adamnan,  written  by  Dorbene,  who  was  elected  abbot  of  lona  in 
713,  and  who  died  in  that  year  was  discovered  by  Dr.  Ferdinand  Keller  in 
1854  at  the  bottom  of  an  old  chest  in  the  public  library  of  Schaffhausen.  It 
proved  to  be  the  identical  MS.,  formerly  at  Reichenau,  copied  by  the  Irish 
Jesuit  Stephen  White,  and  from  his  copy  used  by  John  Colgan  for  his  Trias 
Thaumaturga  published  in  1647,  and  the  BoUandists  in  1698,  and  to-day  it 
is  the  oldest  MS.  in  Switzerland.  It  was  edited  in  1857,  by  Di\  "William 
Reeves  with  a  perfection  of  scholarship  and  painstaking  research,  which  puts 
his  work  on  a  level  with  O'Donovan's  edition  of  the  "Annals  of  the  Four 
Masters."  Reeves  showed  himself  familiar  not  merely  with  the  main  stream 
of  Irish  history,  but  with  its  numerous  accessories  and  tributaries.  In  con- 
centrating his  varied  information  and  resources  on  any  desired  point  and 
presenting  his  material  in  vivid  order,  he  writes  with  the  accurate  knowledge 
almost  of  an  eye-witness  and  contemporary  and  tlie  Ireland  of  the  sixth  and 
seventh  century  passes  before  us  as  though  a  world  in  which  the  modern 
actors  were  still  living.  The  original  MS.  has  a  colophon  which  ends  thus: 
"Whoever  readeth  these  books  on  the  virtues  of  St.  Columba,  let  him  pray 
to  the  Lord  for  me  Dorbene  that  after  death  I  may  possess  eternal  life." 
The  title  page  of  Reeves'  edition  reads:  "The  life  of  St.  Columba,  Founder 
of  Hy.  Written  by  Adamnan,  ninth  abbot,  of  that  Monastery.  The  text  printed 
from  a  MS.  of  the  eighth  century:  with  the  various  readings  of  six  other 
manuscripts  preserved  in  different  parts  of  Europe.  To  which  are  added 
copious  notes  and  dissertations,  illustrative  of  the  early  history  of  the 
Columbian  institutions  in  Ireland  and  Scotland."  "The  Historians  of  Scot- 
land." Vol.  6,  reproduces  the  work  of  Reeves  with  an  English  translation  of 
the  life.  A  new  edition  founded  on  that  of  Reeves,  with  a  new  translation, 
by  J.  T.  Fowler,  appeared  in  1894.  "St.  Columba  of  lona,"  by  Lucy  Menziea 
(1920)  has  also  some  new  features. 

122 


Columcllle,  Apostle  of  Scotland 

mouth  and  the  old  life  of  unknown  authorship  written 
in  Irish  and  contained  in  the  Book  of  Lismore,  as  well 
as  another  independent  Latin  memoir.  The  Book  of 
Leinster,  the  Leabar  Breac,  or  Speckled  Book,  and  other 
Irish  compilations  have  notices  concerning  him,  while 
Bede,  Alcuin,  Walafrid  Strabo  and  Notker  Balbulus 
likewise  refer  to  him.  They  are  but  the  vanguard  of 
a  procession  that  has  endured  to  our  day.^  Of  all  the 
influential  personages  born  in  Ireland  in  her  long  prime, 
men  distinguished  by  high  birth,  lofty  talent,  and  accom- 
plishing eminent  work  in  Ireland  and  abroad,  to  Colum- 
cille  alone,  by  a  singular  destiny,  has  been  allotted  through 
the  ages  his  fair  meed  of  fame.  He  still  stands  before 
us  a  commanding,  aged,  inscrutable  and  yet  familiar  fig- 
ure, surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  men,  who  assisted  or  suc- 
ceeded him  in  his  work,  and  who  are  known  to  us  chiefly 
because  of  him. 

Columcille  was  born  in  521  at  Gartan  close  to  the 
Atlantic  shore  in  the  beautiful  territory  of  the  Cinel 
Connaill  of  which  his  father,  Fedhlimidh,  was  a  ruling 
prince.  The  reigning  high  monarch  of  Ireland  was  his 
half-uncle,  while  his  mother  Ethne  was  the  direct  de- 
scendant of  the  line  of  Cathaoir  Mor  which  gave  Leinster 
its  kings.  Reared  at  Kil-mac-nenain,  celebrated  later 
as  the  site  of  the  inauguration  of  the  O'Donnells  as 
Princes  of  Tyr-Connaill,  Columcille  received  some  pre- 
liminary teaching  at  the  hands  of  Finnian  in  his  famous 
foundation  at  Moville.  The  strictly  lay  element  in  his 
education  was  next  acquired  in  the  Leinster  school  of 
the  bards  presided  over  by  the  aged  Gemman.    The  old 

1  The  last  and  most  copious  of  the  manuscript  lives  of  Columcille  is  a 
compilation  of  all  existing  documents  and  poems  both  in  Latin  and  Irish, 
made  by  the  order  of  his  clansman,  Manus  Ua  Domnaill,  Prince  of  Tyrcon- 
nell,  in  1532.  It  is  preserved  in  a  lar^e  vellum  folio  in  the  Bodleian  Library 
at  Oxford  and  Irish  and  Eng:lish  texts  were  printed  in  1918  by  the  Irish  Fellow- 
ship Foundation  at  the  University  of  Illinois. 

123 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

Gaelic  life  has  a  number  of  delightful  anecdotes  relating 
to  this  early  period  and  from  one  of  them  we  learn  that 
the  old  Roman  practice  of  teaching  the  alphabet  by  means 
of  lettered  cakes,  alluded  to  by  Horace/  had  taken  root 
in  Ireland.  "Now  when  the  time  of  reading  came  to 
him  (Columcille)  the  cleric  went  to  a  certain  prophet 
who  abode  in  the  land  to  ask  him  when  the  boy  ought 
to  begin.  When  the  prophet  had  scanned  the  sky  he 
said:  'Write  an  alphabet  for  him  now.'  The  alphabet 
was  written  in  a  cake.  And  Columcille  consumed  the 
cake  in  this  wise,  half  to  the  east  of  the  water  and  half 
to  the  west  of  the  water.  Said  the  prophet,  through  grace 
a  prophecy:  *So  shall  this  child's  territory  be,  half  to 
the  east  of  the  sea  and  half  to  the  west  of  the  sea;  that  is, 
in  Ireland.*  "^ 

From  the  school  of  Gemman,  Columcille  went  to  Fin- 
nian's  great  establishment  at  Clonard,  where  he  began  to 
study  for  the  priesthood,  and  where  he  had  the  society 
of  the  remarkable  group  of  men,  both  young  and  old, 
who  with  himself  became  later  celebrated  as  the  "Twelve 
Apostles  of  Erin."  The  old  Irish  life  tells  us  that  each 
man  of  the  future  bishops  there  used  to  grind  a  quern 
in  turn.  "Howbeit  an  angel  from  heaven  used  to  grind 
on  behalf  of  Columcille.  That  was  the  honor  which  the 
Lord  used  to  render  him  because  of  the  eminent  noble- 
ness of  his  race."  A  fellow  student  and  particular  friend 
of  Columcille  at  Clonard  was  the  celebrated  Claran,  later 
founder  of  Clonmacnois.  The  Lismore  life  tells  us  that 
once  there  appeared  to  Finnian  a  vision  concerning  them, 
to  wit,  two  moons  arose  from  Clonard,  a  golden  moon 
and  a  silvery  moon.    The  golden  moon  went  into  the 

iSat.  I.  ii  25.     See  Gaidoz,  Les  gateaux  alphabetiques,  Paris,  1886. 
2  Anecdota  Oxoniensia,  Med.  and  Mod.  Ser.  5     (Lives  of  the  Saints  from  the 
Book  of  Lismore),  ed.,  Whitley  Stokes,  p.  172. 

124 


Columcille,  Apostle  of  Scotland 

north  of  the  island  and  Ireland  and  Scotland  gleamed 
thereby.  The  silvery  moon  went  on  till  it  stayed  by  the 
Shannon  and  Ireland  at  her  center  gleamed.  That,  we 
are  told,  "was  Columcille  with  the  grace  of  his  noble  kin 
and  his  wisdom,  and  Ciaran  with  the  refulgence  of  his 
virtues  and  good  deeds." 

From  Clonard  Columcille  passed  on  to  the  school  of 
Mobhi  at  Glasnevin,  near  Dublin,  whither  he  seems  to 
have  been  accompanied  by  Ciaran,  Comgall  and  Cain- 
nech.  There  on  one  occasion,  the  Book  of  Lismore  life 
tells  us,  the  clerics  were  considering  what  each  of  them 
would  like  to  have  in  the  great  church  which  Mobhi  had 
built.  "  *I  should  like,'  saith  Ciaran,  'its  full  of  church 
children  to  attend  the  canonical  hours.'  'I  should  like,' 
saith  Cainnech,  *to  have  its  full  of  books  to  serve  the 
sons  of  Life.'  *I  should  like,'  saith  Comgall,  'its  full  of 
affliction  and  disease  to  be  in  my  own  body  to  subdue 
me  and  to  repress  mc!'"  Then  Columcille  chose  its  full 
of  gold  and  silver  to  cover  relics  and  shrines  withal. 
"Mobhi,"  the  story  goes  on,  "said  it  should  not  be  so, 
but  that  Columcille's  community  would  be  wealthier  than 
any  community  in  Ireland  or  Scotland." 

The  plague  of  544  visited  Ireland  while  Columcille 
was  at  Mobhi's  foundation  and  it  fell  heavily  on  the 
community,  which  numbered  about  fifty  members.  Co- 
lumcille as  a  precautionary  measure  went  northward  and 
shortly  after  received  from  his  cousin,  Prince  of  Aileach 
and  later  monarch  of  Ireland,  the  site  of  a  monastery 
on  the  coast  covering  some  300  acres  and  clad  by  a  splen- 
did forest  of  oak  trees  which  gave  to  that  beauty  spot 
the  name  of  Daire,  or  Derry.  Here  in  546,  when  he 
was  twenty-five  years  old,  Columcille  founded  the  famous 
church  and  school  which  remained  so  dear  to  him  in 

125 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

after  life.  A  generation  later,  when  lona  had  become 
his  home,  he  often  reverted  to  it  in  his  talk  and  occa- 
sionally allowed  his  feeling  to  find  expression  in  poetry. 
*'He  loved  that  city  greatly,"  says  the  Lismore  life,  "and 
said: 

For  this  do  I  love  Derry, 
For  its  smoothness,  for  its  purity, 
Because  It  is  quite  full  of  white  angels 
From  one  end  to  the  other."^ 

4.   His  Career  as  Monastic  Founder 

About  553  he  founded  the  school  of  Durrow  in  the 
present  King's  County  which  attained  great  celebrity. 
Durrow  (Irish,  Dairmagh,  oak-plain)  was  like  Derry 
named  from  the  beautiful  groves  of  oak  which  were  scat- 
tered along  the  slope  of  Druim-Cain,  and,  as  Columcille's 
chief  institution  it  is  mentioned  by  Bede.  He  appointed  as 
its  abbot  Cormac,  the  son  of  Dima,  who  figures  in  the 
pages  of  Adamnan  as  an  indefatigable  voyager  in  the 
northern  ocean,  repeatedly  visiting  lona  and  going  as  far 
north,  it  would  appear,  as  Iceland.  Cormac  was  a 
Momonian  of  the  race  of  Heber  and  not  of  the  kin  of 
Columcille,  and  as  a  result  he  does  not  appear  to  have  got 
on  well  with  the  southern  Ui  Niall  with  whom  he  found 
himself.  This  fact  may  account  for  his  travels  abroad. 
Columcille  in  one  of  his  poems  upbraids  him  for  aban- 
doning so  lovely  an  abode : 

"With  its  books  and  its  learning 
A  devout  city  with  a  hundred  crosses." 

During  the  sixteen  years  interval  between  546  and  562, 
when   Columcille  departed  for  lona,   he  established   a 

1  Anecdota  Oxoniensia,  ser.  5,  p.  175.  A  more  eloquent  translation  is  given 
in  Hyde,  Literary  History  of  Ireland,  p.  169.  The  full  poem  in  Irish  was 
copied  from  a  Brussels  MS.,  by  Michel  Ua  Clerigh  for  Colgan.  It  has  been 
modified  in  transcription. 

126 


Columcille,  Apostle  of  Scotland 


great  number  of  other  monasteries  and  schools  in  Ireland, 
of  which  thirty-seven  are  clearly  marked,  among  them 
Kells,  Swords,  Drumclifif,  Screen,  Kilglass  and  Grum- 
columb.  He  was  at  this  time  at  the  height  of  his  powers 
and  enjoyed  a  reputation  second  to  none  in  Ireland.  His 
activity  was  prodigious  and  opposition  appears  to  have 
kindled  it  into  a  fiercer  flame.  There  is  at  this  period 
little  evidence  of  the  Columcille  described  by  Adamnan/ 
"beloved  by  all"  in  whom  "a  holy  joy  ever  beaming  on 
his  face  revealed  the  joy  and  gladness  with  which  the 
Holy  Spirit  filled  his  Inmost  soul."  ThaT  seems  to  have 
been  a  later  development.  Columcille  during  this  period 
displays  all  the  ardor,  the  passion,  and  the  self-will  of 
his  masterful  character  and  Is  credited  by  Irish  writers 
with  having  been  the  prime  instigator  of  three  bloody 
wars. 

The  events  which  led  to  the  battle  of  Culdreimhne, 
which  was  fought  in  561  and  which  is  traditionally  assigned 
as  a  cause  of  Columcille's  exile  to  lona,  cast  a  dramatic 
light  on  the  feelings  and  aspirations  of  the  epoch,  the 
union  and  clash  of  barbaric  passion  and  the  highest  cul- 
ture, culminating  on  the  lofty  stage  set  by  the  Irish  nation 
in  parliament  assembled  under  the  ancient  Truce  of  God 
at  Tara.  Finnian  of  Moville,  with  whom  Columcille 
had  first  studied,  had  visited  Rome  and  returned  with  a 
copy  of  the  Psalms,  probably  the  first  translation  of  the 
Vulgate  of  St.  Jerome  that  had  appeared  In  Ireland.  Fin- 
nian apparently  valued  his  treasure  so  highly  that  he  did 
not  want  anyone  to  copy  It,  but  Columcille,  who  was  a 

1  The  commentator  on  the  Felire  of  ^ngus  describes  Columcille  as  "a 
man  well  formed,  with  powerful  frame;  his  skin  was  white,  his  face  broad, 
and  fair  and  radiant,  lit  up  with  large,  grey,  luminous  eyes;  his  large,  well 
shaped  head  was  crowned,  except  where  he  wore  his  frontal  tonsure,  with 
close  and  curling  hair.  His  voice  was  clear  and  resonant,  so  that  he  could 
be  heard  at  the  distance  of  1,500  paces,  yet  sweet  with  more  than  the  sweet- 
ness of  birds."  He  himself  in  one  of  his  poems  speaks  of  his  "grey  eye  that 
looks  back  to  Erin." 

127 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 


skilled  scribe,  succeeded  by  sitting  up  several  nights,  in 
making  a  secret  transcription  which  Finnian,  when  he 
learned  of  it,  claimed  as  his  property.  Columcille  refused 
to  surrender  his  transcription  and  the  matter  was  brought 
up  for  decision  at  the  court  of  the  High  Monarch,  Diar- 
muid  II,  at  Tara.  The  decision  Is  the  first  we  know  of 
in  the  law  of  copyright  and  as  such  Is  extremely  inter- 
esting, tho  It  Is  condemned  by  most  of  the  Irish  annalists. 
Appealing  to  the  precedent  of  the  old  Irish  laws  that 
le  gach  boin  a  hoinin  "with  every  cow  her  calf!"  the 
monarch  decided  In  favor  of  Finnian,  adjudging  that 
"as  with  every  cow  her  calf,  so  with  every  book  its  son." 
The  decision  greatly  ofifended  Columcille,  to  whom 
books  were  a  passion,  and  fuel  was  added  to  his  resent- 
ment by  another  event.  It  happened  during  the  great 
Fels,  or  Parliament,  of  Tara,  that  the  son  of  the  King  of 
Connacht,  In  violation  of  the  law  of  sanctuary  which  was 
universally  held  as  sacred  on  these  occasions,  slew  the  son 
of  the  High  King's  steward  and,  knowing  the  penalty 
was  certain  death  fled  to  the  residence  In  the  royal  city 
of  the  northern  princes,  Fergus  and  Domhnaill,  who  im- 
mediately placed  him  under  the  protection  of  Columcille. 
The  offense  was  too  grave,  however,  for  temporizing,  and 
King  DIarmuId,  who  was  a  strenuous  upholder  of  the 
law,  had  him  Immediately  seized  and  put  to  death.  The 
action  exasperated  Columcille  to  the  last  degree.  Shak- 
ing the  dust  of  Tara  from  his  feet  he  sped  northward 
and  called  on  his  kindred  for  vengeance.  A  great  army 
was  collected,  led  by  Prince  Fergus  and  Prince  Domh- 
naill, two  first  cousins  of  Columcille,  and  by  the  King 
of  Connacht,  whose  son  had  been  put  to  death.  The 
High  King  marched  to  meet  the  combination  with  all 
the  troops  he  could  muster,  with  the  result  that  a  furious 

128 


Columcille,   Apostle  of  Scotland 

battle  was   fought  between   Benbulbin   and  the   sea   in 
which  he  was  defeated  with  the  loss  of  3,000  lives. 

It  was  in  the  year  following  this  battle  that  Columcille 
decided  to  leave  Ireland.  He  had  filled  Ireland  with 
arms  and  bloodshed  and  he  seems  not  to  have  been  in- 
sensible to  the  cloud  that  lay  upon  him.  Adamnan  tells 
us  that  a  synod  assembled  at  Tailtenn  in  Meath  for  the 
purpose  of  excommunicating  Columcille.  The  assembly, 
however,  was  not  unanimous.  Brendan  of  Birr  protested 
against  any  condemnation  and  later  Finnian  of  Moville 
testified  his  sense  of  veneration  for  the  accused,  who  had 
been  his  pupil. 

There  is  much  evidence  that  Columcille's  exile  to  lona 
was  assumed  as  a  sort  of  penance,  imposed  on  him  by  St. 
Molaise  of  Devenish,  who,  according  to  several  Irish 
accounts,  made  the  penalty  one  of  perpetual  exile.  Other 
testimony  would  seem  to  indicate  that  the  missionary  en- 
terprise was  voluntary.  'Tro  Christo  peregrinari  volens, 
enavigavit,"  the  common  formula  of  missionary  enter- 
prise, is  Adamnan's  statement  of  his  motive;  with  which 
Bede's  expression  "ex  quo  ipse  praedicaturus  abiit"  is  in 
keeping.  That  Columcille  returned  to  Ireland  repeatedly 
and  took  an  active  part  in  civil  and  religious  transactions 
is  demonstrable  from  Adamnan. 

In  563  Columcille,  now  in  his  forty-second  year,  set 
sail  with  a  number  of  associates  from  his  well-beloved 
Derry,  determined,  according  to  popular  tradition,  to 
convert  in  Scotland  as  many  souls  as  had  fallen  at  Cul- 
dreimhne.  The  parting  was  bitter  and  the  lament  ascribed 
to  him  reveals  his  feeling: 

Too  swiftly  my  coracle  flies  on  her  way ; 

From  Derry  I  mournfully  turned  her  prow ; 
I  grieve  at  the  errand  which  drives  me  today 
To  the  land  of  the  Ravens,  to  Alba,  now. 
10  129 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

How  swiftly  we  glide !  there  is  a  grey  eye 
Looks  back  upon  Erin,  but  it  no  more 

Shall  see  while  the  stars  shall  endure  in  the  sky 
Her  women,  her  men,  or  her  stainless  shore. 

The  missionary  labors  of  Columcille  in  Scotland,  in 
collaboration  with  his  devoted  colleagues,  extended  over 
the  remaining  period  of  his  life.  The  island  of  Hy  was 
donated  to  him  by  King  Conall,  his  kinsman,  and  there 
he  established  his  celebrated  monastery  of  lona.  The 
Scoti  or  Irish  already  in  Scotland  were  nominally  Chris- 
tians ;  the  Picts  were  not.  Hence  the  conversion  of  these 
latter  formed  the  grand  project  for  the  exercise  of  mis- 
sionary exertion  and  Columcille  applied  himself  with 
characteristic  energy  to  the  task.  He  visited  the  Pictlsh 
king  in  his  fortress,  won  his  esteem,  overcame  the  opposi- 
tion of  his  ministers,  and  planted  Christianity  in  the 
province.  He  lived  thirty-four  years  at  lona,  and  it  is 
with  his  work  with  the  island  as  a  center  and  with  his 
life  after  he  had  gone  there  that  the  biography  of  Adam- 
nan  mainly  deals. 


130 


CHAPTER  XI 

COLUMCILLE  AND  BRETHREN  AT  lONA 

I.  The  Moving  World  of  Ireland  and  Britain.  2.  Ritual  and  Cere- 
monial. 3.  Literary  Work  and  Other  Occupations.  4.  Columcille 
and  His  Friendships. 

I.  The  Moving  World  of  Ireland  and  Britain 

IN  turning  over  the  pages  of  Adamnan,  we  have 
brought  home  to  us  one  of  the  precious  functions 
which  literature  serves.  Had  we  no  Roman  litera- 
ture, the  material  monuments  of  Rome  would  be  almost 
as  meaningless  to  us  as  the  Pyramids  and  the  Sphinx. 
Had  we  no  Grecian  literature,  the  marvels  of  Greek  archi- 
tecture would  tell  us  a  story  as  broken  almost  as  the 
cryptograms  conned  by  archeologists  from  Babylonian 
mounds.  Had  we  no  pagan  Irish  literature,  the  Europe 
of  the  Celt,  the  Galatian  and  the  Gaul  would  be  as  dead 
to  us  as  an  Egyptian  mummy;  its  monuments  would  be 
as  insoluble  as  the  sentinel  stones  of  Stonehenge  and 
Carnac ;  and  old  wives'  foreign  tales  would  take  the  place 
of  the  authentic  witness  of  antiquity.  Had  we  no  medieval 
Irish  literature,  medieval  Ireland  would  be  as  incom- 
municable as  medieval  America.  But  the  living  litera- 
ture of  ancient  and  early  medieval  Ireland  is  more  copious 
and  authoritative  than  the  literature  of  all  the  rest  of  west- 
ern Europe  put  together,  and  of  its  medieval  monuments 
there  is  hardly  any  work  more  informative  and  interesting 
than  Adamnan's  biography  of  Columcille.  Regret  is 
sometimes  exprest  that  Adamnan  did  not  write  in  Irish 
rather  than  in  Latin;  that  he  wrote  the  history  of  an 

131 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

individual  rather  than  of  a  church  or  nation.  But  it 
is  enough  that  the  work  is  a  masterpiece  of  its  kind.  It 
holds  up  for  us  as  in  a  mirror  the  living  soul  and  mind 
of  the  Ireland  of  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries.  It 
reveals  to  us  the  inmost  thought,  the  breathing  life,  the 
spontaneous  speech  and  gesture  and  the  interior  spiritual 
mechanism  of  the  men  who  swung  Europe  from  bar- 
barism back  to  civilization,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether 
it  could  have  gained  in  comprehensiveness  without  losing 
its  priceless  wealth  of  intimate  disclosure  and  camera- 
like detail.  Enough  for  us  that  through  Adamnan  and 
the  other  Irish  authors  of  his  time,  we  are  permitted  to 
gaze  with  entranced  eyes  on  the  moving  world  of  Ireland 
and  Hibernicized  Britain  bathed  in  the  morning  light  of 
heroic  pristine  faith  and  culture. 

It  is  no  static  world  of  placid  contemplation  on  which 
Adamnan  throws  the  casement  but  an  ever-shifting  popu- 
lous scene  of  unflagging  movement  and  varied  occupation. 
Guests,  distinguished  and  undistinguished,  are  perpetually 
coming  and  going.  At  Derry  and  lona  fleets  of  ships  lie 
at  anchor  with  crews  not  far  away,  ready  to  start  on  short 
notice  either  for  Ireland  or  Britain.  Occasionally  at  lona 
one  of  the  sailors  is  missing  and  there  is  a  delay,  but  if 
the  breeze  is  favorable,  Columcille  bids  the  traveler 
depart  with  confidence.  We  hear  of  voyages  into  the 
North  "beyond  the  bounds  of  human  enterprise,"  of  huge 
sea  monsters  and  swarms  of  smaller  amphibians,  of  poach- 
ers among  the  young  seals  bred  at  lona,  and  of  Galilean 
sailors  bringing  news  of  an  earthquake  in  Istria.  The 
building  of  ships,  houses  and  churches  goes  on  incessantly. 
At  lona  long  boats  are  drawn  loaded  with  hewn  pine 
and  oak,  and  fleets  of  twelve  vessels  carrying  oak  trees 
for  building  row  out  to  sea  with  sailyards  raised  in  the 

132 


Columcille   and   Brethren  at   lona 

form  of  a  cross.  We  hear  of  plowing,  sowing,  reaping 
and  threshing;  of  the  cultivation  of  oak  groves  and  apple 
trees;  and  of  salmon  fishing.  Strangers  signal  across  the 
sound  from  Mull  by  shouting  or  lighting  fires  and  are 
ferried  over  the  mile  of  water. 

The  yachts,  freightships  and  ferries  on  the  water  have 
their  counterpart  in  the  curri  and  chariots  on  the  land. 
Columcille  journeys  forth  in  his  chariot  both  in  lona  and 
Ireland,  on  one  occasion  with  the  chariot  unsecured  by 
linchpins.  A  rich  cleric  mounted  in  a  chariot  drives 
pleasantly  along  the  Plain  of  Breg  (Magh  Bregh,  Meath) 
and  Columcille  prophesies  that  he  will  die  lying  on  a 
couch  with  a  prostitute  and  choked  with]  a  morsel  of  meat 
from  his  neighbor's  cattle  that  had  strayed  within  his 
walled  enclosure.  Most  of  Columcille's  long  journeys, 
covering  in  some  cases  hundreds  of  miles,  were  made 
however  on  foot  with  no  greater  help  than  that  given  by 
a  staff.  Tho  the  danger  from  wild  beasts  must  have 
been  imminent,  Columcille  and  his  companions  do  not 
seem  to  have  carried  any  weapon.  On  one  occasion  it  is 
stated  that  by  prayer  and  the  power  of  the  eye  he  procured 
the  death  of  a  huge  wild  boar  pursued  by  the  hounds. 

The  majority  of  the  houses  built  by  the  brethren  were 
apparently  of  wood,  of  heavy  timber  or  wattles,  while 
others  were  of  stone,  and  that  some  of  them  were  not 
small  is  made  clear  by  the  anxiety  displayed  by  Colum- 
cille over  the  severe  labor  of  the  brethren  on  one  of  the 
buildings  marked  out  by  him  at  Derry.  Many  of  the  houses 
of  the  time  were  in  fact  white  timbered  mansions,  glisten- 
ing in  the  sunlight  on  the  summit  of  great  duns,  chambered 
and  unchambered,  thousands  of  which  continue  to  this 
day.  We  hear  of  a  magna  domus  and  a  monasterium 
rotundum — clearly  Round  Towers,  as  Petrie  notes,  were 

133 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

not  unknown  in  the  sixth  century.  The  size  of  the  monas- 
tery and  school  was  limited  by  the  demand,  and  grew 
with  it.  The  cell  of  Columcille  at  Clonard  became  the 
portal  to  the  later  church ;  his  royal  birth  may  have  housed 
him  in  a  chamber  larger  and  more  ornate  than  the  retreat 
of  the  other  students.  lona  was  a  small  community  com- 
pared with  the  more  renowned  establishments  in  Ireland, 
but  the  references  to  guest  chambers,  kitchen,  refectory, 
church,  sacristy,  and  other  chambers,  and  out-buildings 
give  the  impression  of  an  extensive  household. 

2.   Ritual  and  Ceremonial 

The  reception  of  guests  and  the  deportment  of  the 
brethren  towards  one  another  were  distinguished  by  a 
ritual  and  ceremonial  as  precise  as  the  motions  at  a  royal 
court.  When  a  stranger  arrived  he  was  sometimes  intro- 
duced at  once  to  the  abbot  by  whom  he  was  kissed,  and 
sometimes  the  interview  was  deferred.  When  an  expected 
guest  arrived  Columcille  and  the  brethren  went  to  meet 
and  welcome  him.  He  was  then  conducted  to  the  oratory 
and  thanks  returned  for  his  safety.  From  this  he  was 
led  to  a  lodging,  hospitium,  and  water.was  prepared  to 
wash  his  feet.  If  a  visitor  happened  to  arrive  on  an 
ordinary  fast  day  of  the  week,  the  fast  was  relaxed  in 
his  favor,  and  a  consolatio  cibi  was  allowed.  If  the  guests 
numbered  more  than  one,  as  in  the  case  of  the  arrival 
of  Comgall,  Cainnech,  Brendan  and  Cormac,  all  "holy 
founders,"  on  one  occasion,  the  celebrations,  sacred  and 
profane,  were  in  accord  with  their  rank.  On  this  occa- 
sion the  four  illustrious  guests  agreed  that  Columcille 
should  consecrate  the  mysteries  of  the  Eucharist.  Alms- 
giving was  practised  and  valuable  presents,  under  the 
name  of  "Xenia,"  were  sent  on  one  occasion  to  a  man  in 

134 


Columcille   and   Brethren   at   lona 

need.  Itinerant  beggars,  who  went  about  with  wallets, 
had  only  a  cold  welcome,  and  grievous  transgressors  were 
excluded. 

Adamnan,  himself  an  aristocrat  belonging  to  Coliim- 
cille's  own  line,  and  an  intimate  friend  of  at  least  three 
kings,  Finnachta  of  Ireland,  Aldfrid  of  Northumbria, 
and  Buite  of  Pictland,  shows  in  his  narration  of  facts 
a  lively  sense  of  difference  in  rank.  He  refers  habitually 
to  the  station  of  visitors  and  mentions  whether  they  are 
of  high  or  lowly  position,  and  birth.  He  Latinizes  into 
tigernes  the  Irish  word  "tigherna,"  lord.  The  type  of 
historian  who  takes  comfort  in  the  delusion  that  the  mon- 
arch of  Ireland  was  a  merely  nominal  figure-head,  will 
find  little  consolation  in  Adamnan.  He  is  a  distinct 
believer  in  the  divine  right  of  kings.  The  high  monarch 
is  "the  king  of  all  Ireland."  He  is  "by  divine  appoint- 
ment (ordinatus  a  Deo)  king  of  all."  It  is  Adamnan 
indeed  who  gives  us  the  story  of  the  first  Christian  inaugu- 
ration of  a  sovereign.^  But  there  is  a  proper  honor  and 
rubric  pertaining  to  each  rank,  spiritual  and  secular.  A 
bishop  for  instance  is  received  in  the  conventional  hier- 
archy with  the  sort  of  honor  which  one  officer  of  a  state 
might  extend  towards  another.  Marked  respect  is  shown 
to  him  by  the  abbot,  who  in  his  turn  receives  the  homage 
of  those  of  inferior  spiritual  rank.  Fintan,  for  example, 
arriving  at  lona  and  being  presented  to  Baithene,  the 
cousin  and  immediate  successor  of  Columcille,  kneels  and 
remains  in  that  posture  until  ordered  by  the  abbot  to  rise 
and  be  seated. 

1  This  was  Columcille's  inauguration  of  Aidan  as  King:  of  the  Irish  Scots 
to  succeed  Conaill  in  575.  The  Irish  coronation  service  used  by  Columcille 
was  introduced  by  Irish  missionaries  into  England  and  was  thenceforth  used 
for  the  inauguration  of  the  English  kings.  It  has  been  continued  in  large 
part  in  England  to  this  day.  The  stone  beneath  the  throne  at  Westminster 
Abbey,  brought  from  Scone,  is  likewise  supposed  to  have  been  Irish. 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of   Britain 

The  authority  of  the  abbot  was  almost  absolute.  He 
was  wont  on  extraordinary  occasions  to  summon  the  breth- 
ren to  the  oratory  even  in  the  dead  of  night  and  there 
address  them  from  the  altar  and  solicit  their  prayers. 
Occasionally  he  instituted  a  festival,  proclaimed  a  holiday 
and  enjoined  the  celebration  of  the  Eucharist.  As  occa- 
sion offered  he  dispensed  with  a  fast,  relaxed  the  peni- 
tential discipline,  or  regulated  its  intensity.  He  gave 
license  of  departure  which  he  signified  with  his  benedic- 
tion.    He  was  saluted  by  prostration. 

He  forbade  at  pleasure  admission  to  the  island.  When 
he  thought  fit  he  dispatched  a  chosen  brother  on  a  distant 
mission  or  for  monastic  purposes.  He  had  control  of 
the  temporalities.  When  at  home  he  was  attended,  except 
when  he  signified  his  wish  to  be  alone.  When  abroad 
he  was  accompanied  by  a  retinue,  the  members  of  which 
were  styled  viri  sociales.  Columcille  inaugurated  the 
first  independent  king  of  Scot  Dalriada  in  lona,  and  the 
ceremony  was  probably  continued  as  an  honorary  function 
by  the  abbots  who  succeeded  him.  Columcille  named  his 
own  successor  and  in  the  election  preference  was  always 
given  to  the  kin  of  the  founder.^ 

3.  Literary  Work  and  Other  Occupations 

Details  wanting  in  Adamnan  are  often  filled  in  by  the 
biography  in  the  Book  of  Lismore,^  of  later  medieval 

1  The  tradition  of  the  high  birth  and  princely  connections  of  the  g-ovemors 
of  Columcille's  foundations  was  well  known  abroad,  and  in  the  verses  which 
Walafrid  Strabo  wrote  concerning  the  life  and  death  of  Blaithmac  of  lona, 
"whom  wealthy  Hibernia  gave  to  the  world,"  who  was  killed  in  a  Danish 
raid  on  the  monastery,  reference  is  made  to  his  kinship  with  the  Irish  kings: 

Regall  de  stirpe  natus  summumque  decorem. 

Nobilitatis  habens  florebat  regius  heres  (Poetae  Latini  Aevi  Carolini  II, 
p.  297). 

2  Anecdota  Oxoniensia.  Lives  of  Saints  from  the  Book  of  Lismore,  edited 
•with  a  translation,  notes,  and  indices,  by  Whitley  Stokes,  D.  C.  L.,  Oxford, 
the  Clarendon  Press,  1890.  Mediaeval  and  Modern  Series  5.  Betha  Choluim 
chille,  pp.  20-33;  transl.,  pp.  168-181. 

136 


Columcille  and  Brethren  at   lona 

origin.  Apart  from  the  larger  occupations  connected  with 
farming  and  building,  we  observe  the  brethren  engaged 
in  innumerable  smaller  occupations.  Columcille  him- 
self was  skilful  with  his  hands  and  an  adept  at  making 
"crosses  and  writing  tablets  and  book  satchels  and  other 
church  gear,"  His  favorite  occupation  seems  to  have 
been  writing,  sometimes  transcriptions,  sometimes  com- 
position. His  last  occupation  in  life  was  copying  the 
scriptures  and  his  ejaculation,  "Let  Baithene  write  the 
rest,"  was  taken  as  an  indication  of  his  will  in  respect 
to  his  successor,  whose  ability  as  a  scribe  was  a  primary 
consideration.  The  total  number  of  the  works  written 
by  Columcille  must  have  been  great.  The  Lismore  life 
credits  him  with  300  books — "many  were  the  churches 
he  marked  out  and  the  books  he  wrote,  to  wit,  300  churches 
and  300  books."  Allowing:  ^or  round  numbers,  it  is  cer- 
tain he  left  many  works  Hehin'd  him.  Bede  tells  us  that 
"writings  of  his  life  an'd  discourses  are  said  to  be  preserved 
by  his  disciples"  (Lib.  Ill,  C.  4) ,  and  the  medieval  tradi- 
tion is  that  he  left  a  book  to  every  church  founded  by 
him.*  He  was  prolific  as  a  poet  as  well,  tho  of  the  enor- 
mous number  of  extant  poems  attributed  to  him,  few 
can  be  genuine  even  in  part.  But  the  poetic  mood  was 
a  frequent  visitation :  "Then  he  went  to  Clonmacnois  with 
the  hymn  he  made  for  Ciaran.  For  he  made  abundant 
praises  for  God's  households,  as  said  the  poet: 

"  *Noble  thrice  fifty,  nobler  than  every  apostle, 
The  number  of  miracles  are  (as)  grass. 
Some  in  Latin  which  was  beguiling, 
Others  in  Gaelic,  fair  the  tale.' " 

1  Adamnan  relates  that  after  Columcille's  death,  and  fourteen  years  before 
the  date  at  which  Adamnan  himself  wrote,  during  a  drought  at  lona,  the 
brethren  walked  around  a  newly  plowed  and  sowed  field,  taking  with  them 
the  white  tunio  of  Columcille  and  some  books  written  by  his  own  hand, 
which  they  raised  in  the  air,  shaking  the  tunic  three  times,  and  opening  the 
books  and  reading  them  on  the  Hill  of  the  Angels  (now  called  Sithean  Mor). 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of   Britain 

But  to  a  being  so  strenuous  the  writing  of  poetry  could 
only  have  been  a  diversion  and  a  relaxation.  "He  could 
not,"  says  Adamnan,  "spend  the  space  of  even  one  hour 
without  study  or  prayer,  writing  or  some  other  holy  occu- 
pation. So  incessantly  was  he  engaged  night  and  day 
in  the  unwearied  exercise  of  fasting  and  watching  that 
the  burden  of  each  of  these  austerities  would  seem  to  be 
beyond  the  power  of  all  human  endurance.  And  still  in 
all  these  he  was  beloved  by  all;  for  the  holy  joy  ever 
beaming  from  his  face  revealed  the  joy  and  gladness  with 
which  the  Holy  Spirit  filled  his  inmost  soul." 

"Surely,"  adds  the  Lismore  life,  "it  was  great  lowliness 
in  Columcille  that  he  himself  used  to  take  off  his  monks' 
sandals  and  wash  their  feet  for  them.  He  often  used 
to  carry  his  portion  of  corn  on  his  back  to  the  mill  and 
grind  it  and  bring  it  home  to  his  house.  He  never  used 
to  put  linen  or  wool  against  his  skin.  His  side  used  to 
come  against  the  bare  mold.  A  pillarstone  used  to  be 
under  his  head  for  a  bolster  and  he  slept  only  so  long  as 
Diarmuid  his  fosterling  was  chanting  the  three  chapters 
of  the  Beatus.  He  would  arise  up  at  once  after  that  and 
would  cry  and  beat  his  hands  together,  like  a  loving 
mother  lamenting  her  only  son.  He  would  chant  the 
three  fifties  on  the  sand  of  the  shore  before  the  sun  would 
rise.  In  the  day  he  attended  to  the  hours.  He  offered 
Christ's  Body  and  Blood.  He  preached  the  Gospel,  he 
baptized,  he  consecrated." 

The  culminating  period  in  Columcille's  career 
seems  to  have  been  reached  following  the  parliament  or 
convention  of  Drumceat,  held  in  575.  The  primary  object 
of  that  parliament,  which  had  been  called  together  by 
the  High  Monarch  Aedh,  was  the  dissolution  of  the  order 
of  the  bards,  who  had  developed  through  the  centuries 

138 


Columcille  and  Brethren  at   lona 

an  organization  so  powerful  as  to  be  a  menace  both  to 
the  State  and  the  Church,  and  whose  insolence  and  exac- 
tions had  become  an  oppression  to  every  man  and  woman 
enjoying  wealth  and  rank  enough  to  draw  their  poetic 
satire.  Columcille's  eloquent  defense  of  the  men  who, 
despite  their  ofTenses,  had  served  as  guardians  of  the 
literary  memorials  of  the  kingdom,  mitigated  the  sentence 
of  extinction,  and  turned  the  current  of  opinion  in  the 
direction  of  a  general  reorganization  and  reduction  in 
numbers.  His  counsel  in  respect  to  the  lay  education 
of  the  country,  which  was  largely  in  the  control  of  the 
bards,  led  to  the  establishment  of  head  colleges  In  each 
of  the  provinces  with  subsidiary  colleges  under  them.  He 
likewise,  in  union  with  Aldan,  King  of  Scot  Dalriada,  who 
had  accompanied  him  to  the  parliament,  succeeded  in 
relieving  Scotland  of  the  tribute  which  It  had  hitherto 
been  obliged  to  pay  to  the  High  Monarch  and  giving  it 
the  status  of  a  self-governing  kingdom  in  union  with  the 
motherland. 

Following  the  parliament,  the  proceedings  of  which 
furnished  a  striking  manifestation  of  his  Influence,* 
Columcille  was  acclaimed  by  multitudes  and  countless 
gifts  from  the  people  of  the  Eilne  (Magh  Elne  on  the 
Dann)  were  laid  out  on  the  paved  court  of  the  monastery. 
Visiting  Clonmacnois  from  Durrow  some  years  later,  from 
the  famous  monastery  of  Claran  and  all  the  grange  farms 
around,  the  populace,  headed  by  the  Abbot  Alithlr,  flocked 
with  enthusiasm  to  meet  him,  "as  If,"  says  Adamnan,  "he 
were  an  angel  of  the  Lord.  Humbly  bowing  down  their 
faces  to  the  ground  they  kissed  him  most  reverently  and, 
singing  hymns  of  praise  as  they  went,  they  conducted 

1  An  extremely  dramatic  account  of  the  proceedings  and  of  the  reception 
given  to  Columcille  at  Drumceat,  where  he  faced  old  enemies,  is  given  in  the 
Edinburgh  MS.,  p.  22b;  reproduced  by  Stokes,  Anecdota  Oxoniensla,  Mediaeval 
and  Modern,  Series  5,  pp.  309-315. 

139 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

him  with  all  honor  to  the  church.  Over  the  saint  as  he 
walked  a  canopy  made  of  wood  was  supported  by  four 
men  walking  by  his  side  lest  the  holy  abbot,  St.  Colum- 
cille,  should  be  troubled  by  the  crowds  of  brethren  press- 
ing upon  him."  The  luster  and  glory  of  his  work  in 
Scotland  had  then  thrown  a  halo  around  him  and  senti- 
ment had  changed  greatly  since,  following  Culdreimhne 
a  quarter  of  a  century  earlier,  the  Synod  of  Tailtenn  had 
sought  to  excommunicate  him. 

4.    COLUMCILLE  AND  HiS  FRIENDSHIPS 

Like  Adamnan,  Columcille  had,  despite  the  impulsive 
and  vehement  temper  that  precipitated  fierce  wars  even 
after  his  departure  to  lona,  a  true  genius  for  friendship. 
His  passionate  devotion  to  his  own  family  and  clan 
gleams  alike  in  Adamnan  and  the  other  medieval  litera- 
ture that  abounds  concerning  him.  This  excess  of  affec- 
tion he  imputed  to  himself  as  a  fault.  "So  then  Baithene 
related  to  him  the  famous  vision,  to  wit,  three  chairs  seen 
by  him  in  heaven,  even  a  chair  of  gold  and  a  chair  of 
silver  and  a  chair  of  glass.  Columcille  explained  the 
vision:  *Ciaran  the  Great,  the  wright's  son,  is  the  chair 
of  gold,  for  the  greatness  of  his  charity  and  his  mercy. 
Molaisse  is  the  chair  of  silver  because  of  his  wisdom  and 
his  piety.  I  myself  am  the  chair  of  glass  because  of 
my  aflfection:  for  I  prefer  Gaels  to  (the  other)  men  of 
the  world,  and  the  kindred  of  Conall  to  the  (other)  Gaels, 
and  the  kindred  of  Lugaid  to  the  (rest  of  the)  kindred 
of  Conall.'  "^ 

His  extraordinary  solicitude  for  the  brethren  who  peo- 
pled his  foundations,  which  Adamnan  so  signally  illus- 

iLebar  Breac  or  Speckled  Book,  p.  236,  col.  2;  Anecdota  Oxoniensia,  Med. 
and  Mod.,  Series  5,  p.  302. 

140 


Columcille  and  Brethren  at   lona 

trates,  was  an  element  and  development  of  his  partiality 
for  his  own  kin  who  figured  so  largely  in  their  composi- 
tion. But  his  friendships  did  not  on  that  account  run 
in  narrow  confines.  He  was  on  terms  of  intimacy  with 
most  of  the  great  men  of  his  day.  Ciaran  of  Clonmacnois 
acted  the  part  of  an  elder  brother  at  Clonard  and  their 
friendship  remained  warm  till  Ciaran's  early  death  in 
548.  Comgall,  founder  of  Bangor,  and  Cainnech  of 
Ossory  were  not  merely  intimate  friends  but  on  occasion 
the  companions  of  some  of  his  long  missionary  journeys. 
Both  these  great  men,  along  with  Brendan  of  Clonfert, 
and  Brendan  of  Birr  were  frequent  visitors  to  lona  and 
other  of  his  foundations.  On  one  occasion  Columcille 
foretells  the  coming  of  Cainnech  in  the  midst  of  a  tempest 
and  orders  the  brethren  to  prepare  the  guest  chamber  and 
draw  water  to  wash  his  feet.  He  never  forgot  his  cham- 
pionship by  Brendan  of  Birr  before  the  excommunicating 
Synod  at  Tailtenn  and  when  the  latter  died  in  573  he 
instituted  a  festival  at  lona  in  commemoration  of  his  day. 
In  his  later  days  all  Ireland  longed  to  see  him.  *'When 
Columcille  had  been  thirty  years  in  Scotland  anxiety  (?) 
seized  the  men  of  Ireland  as  to  seeing  him  and  as  to 
communing  with  him  before  he  went  to  death."^ 

Among  the  numerous  company  whom  Columcille  hon- 
ored with  his  friendship,  many  of  them  famous  on  their 
own  account,  standing  out  in  a  vivid  lineament  and  life- 
like detail  lacking  in  many  a  modern  statesman,  a  strange 
attachment  united  Columcille  to  Cormac,  the  descendant 
of  Lethain.  He  was  of  the  line  of  Olliol  Olum,  King  of 
Munster  and  pivotal  ancestor  of  its  nobility,  and  was 
thus  far  removed  from  kinship  with  Columcille,  who  nev- 

1  Edinburgh  MS.,  p.  22b,  apparently  taken  from  the  introduction  to  some 
copy  of  the  Amra  Choluim  chille,  Dalian  Forgraill's  poetic  eulogry  of  Colum- 
cille's  work  at  the  convention  of  Drumceat  (Anecdota  Oxon.,  Ser.  5,  p.  309). 

141 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

ertheless  set  him  over  his  loved  Durrow  in  the  midst  of 
his  own  kin  of  the  southern  Hy  Niall,  who  showed  little 
toleration  to  the  stranger.  Under  the  circumstances  it  is 
not  strange  that  Cormac  should  show  that  strong  liking 
for  travel  and  the  sea  which  was  his  most  distinguishing 
characteristic.  Two  extremely  ancient  poems  in  Irish 
embody  the  expostulations  of  Columcille  to  his  friend  for 
his  abandonment  of  Durrow  and  the  resultant  colloquy. 
The  opening  passage  of  one  of  them  touches  on  Cormac's 
navigations : 

Thou  art  welcome,  O  comely  Cormac 

From  over  the  all-teeming  sea; 

What  sent  thee  forth;  where  hast  thou  been, 

Since  the  time  we  were  on  the  same  path? 

Two  years  and  a  month  to  this  night 

Is  the  time  thou  hast  been  wandering  from  port  to  port 

From  wave  to  wave;  resolute  the  energy 

To  traverse  the  wide  ocean.  ^ 

Columcille's  thoughts  appear  to  have  been  continually 
with  Cormac,  and  on  one  occasion  he  suddenly  calls  on 
the  brethren  to  pray  for  the  indefatigable  navigator  who 
"sailing  too  far  hath  passed  the  bounds  of  human  enter- 
prise." On  another  occasion  the  brethren  were  talking 
about  Cormac.  He  had  taken  boat  some  time  before 
for  the  Orkney  Islands  and  they  were  speculating  from 
appearances  whether  or  not  he  had  had  a  prosperous 
voyage.  The  voice  of  Columcille  breaks  in  on  their  col- 
loquy.   They  shall  see  Cormac  that  very  day  and  have  the 

1  Copies  of  these  poems  are  preserved  in  the  Burgundian  Library  at  Brus- 
sels in  a  volume  of  manuscript  collections  made  in  1630,  by  Michel  Ua  Cle- 
righ,  one  of  the  Four  Masters.  Both  the  poems  are  found  also  in  a  MS., 
of  the  Bodleian  Library,  Laud  615  (pp.  34,  117),  which  contains  a  large  col- 
lection of  Irish  poems,  136  in  number,  for  the  most  part  ascribed  to  Colum- 
cille. Reeves'  Life  of  St.  Columba,  by  Adamnan,  gives  both  Irish  poems  with 
English  translations,  by  Eugene  O'Curry,  from  which  the  above  passage  is 
taken.  Their  titles  are  given  in  Colgan's  list  of  the  reputed  writings  of  Colum- 
cille (Trias  Thaum.,  p.  472a,  num.  15,  16). 

142 


Columcille  and   Brethren  at   lona 

account  of  his  fortune  from  his  own  lips,  he  says.  And 
so  it  turns  out.  Some  hours  afterwards  Cormac  steps 
into  the  oratory  to  the  great  satisfaction  of  all.  But  a 
journey  to  lona,  even  to  the  Orkneys,  seems  to  have  been 
but  a  step  to  Cormac.  We  are  told  of  a  wild  voyage  of 
fourteen  days'  duration  straight  northwards  before  he 
touched  land,  whence  it  has  been  supposed  he  went  as 
far  as  Iceland.  He  encountered  not  only  the  usual  perils 
of  the  deep,  but  the  attacks  of  sea  monsters  of  hideous 
and  unknown  form,  which  struck  against  the  oars  and 
threatened  the  sides  of  the  vessel. 

At  the  court  of  Brude,  king  of  the  Picts,  Columcille 
had  met  Regulus  of  Orkney  and  had  requested  Brude 
to  enjoin  Regulus,  as  his  tributary,  to  give  protection  to 
his  friend  Cormac,  who,  in  his  travels,  was  likely  to  be 
in  the  Orkneys.  "Some  of  our  brethren,"  he  announced 
to  his  powerful  convert,  "have  lately  sailed  to  discover 
a  desert  in  the  pathless  sea.  If  they  should  wander  to 
the  Orcadian  Islands,  do  thou  shield  them  from  harm."^ 
We  are  told  that  through  this  recommendation  Cormac's 
life  was  saved  there  when  he  was  in  imminent  danger. 

Dicuil  in  his  "De  Mensura  Orbis  Terrae,"'  written  in 
825,  details  to  us  the  experiences  of  some  Irish  ecclesiastics 
who  had  dwelt  in  Iceland  before  795.  Cormac's  voyages, 
however,  took  place  over  two  centuries  previous  to  that 
date.  We  learn  likewise  from  Dicuil  that  Irish  ecclesi- 
astics had  dwelt  in  the  Faroe  Islands,  which  are  situated 
midway  between  Iceland  and  the  north  of  Scotland,  for 
almost  a  hundred  years  before  the  time  at  which  he  was 
writing,  and  that  other  Irish  navigators  had  sailed  in 
the  direction  of  the  Arctic  Circle  until  their  journey  north- 

lAdamnan,  Vita  Col.   (ed.,  Reeves,  p.  366). 
2  Edited,  Parthey,  VII,  11-14. 

143 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

wards  was  stayed  by  the  impenetrable  wall  of  ice.  Thus 
at  least  from  the  time  of  Columcille  onwards  Irish  explor- 
ers were  attempting,  and  attempting  with  extraordinary 
success  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  resources  at  their 
disposal,  that  exploration  of  the  northern  latitudes  which 
with  all  the  aids  of  modern  civilization  has  been  even  now 
only  partially  accomplished. 


144 


CHAPTER  XII 

DEATH    OF    COLUMCILLE 

I.  The  Last  Scene  at  lona.  2.  Illuminated  Manuscripts  and  Latin 
Poems.  3.  By  the  Time  of  Adamnan.  4.  The  Hibernicizing  of 
North  Britain. 

I.  The  Last  Scene  at  Iona 

IT  is  characteristic  of  the  meticulous  accuracy  of  Irish 
records  that  we  know  not  merely  the  year  and  the 
month,  but  the  very  day  and  almost  the  very  hour 
and  minute  of  the  night  in  which  Columcille  passed 
away.^  It  was  just  after  midnight  between  Saturday  the 
8th  and  Sunday  the  9th  of  June,  in  the  year  597,  that 
there  took  place  at  Iona  a  scene,  the  story  of  which  is  as 
moving  and  humanly  interesting  as  any  that  has  come  out 
of  the  North. 

The  story  is  told  in  the  last  chapter  of  Adamnan,  where 
he  describes  "How  Our  Patron  Saint  Columba  Passed  to 
the  Lord."  On  the  eve  before  his  death  the  great  man,  hav- 
ing inspected  the  granary  and  the  barn  of  the  monastery 
and  having  exprest  satisfaction  that  the  brethren  would 
be  well  supplied  for  the  year,  confided  to  his  attendant 
Diarmuid  that  his  end  was  near.  A  touching  dialog  then 
follows,  which  leaves  Diarmuid  weeping  bitterly,  while 
later  on  is  depicted  the  oft-quoted  incident  of  the  white 
horse,  "the  obedient  servant  that  used  to  carry  the  milk- 
vessels  between  the  monastery  and  the  byre,"  which  wept 

1  On  the  subject  of  the  accuracy  of  Irish  annals,  etc.,  consult  Reeves,  Pro- 
ceeding's of  the  Royal  Irish  Acad.,  Joyce,  Social  History  of  Ireland,  I.,  pp. 
513-21;  War  of  the  Gaels  with  the  Galls,  ed.,  Todd,  Introd.  XXVI;  Hyde, 
Literary  Hist,  of  Ireland,  38-4  3;  Kuno  Meyer's  "Early  Relations  between  the 
Gael  and  Brython,"  read  before  Society  of  Cymmrodorion,  May  28,  1896. 


11 


145 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of  Britain 

into  Columcille's  bosom  and  which  he  blest.    Adamnan 
goes  on : 

"And  going  forth  from  thence  and  ascending  a  small  hill,  which 
rose  over  the  monastery,  he  stood  for  a  little  upon  its  summit,  and, 
as  he  stood,  elevating  both  his  palms,  he  blessed  his  community  and 
said,  'Upon  this  place,  however  narrow  and  mean,  not  only  shall 
the  kings  of  the  Scots  (i.  e.,  the  Irish)  with  their  peoples,  but  also 
the  rulers  of  foreign  and  barbarous  nations  (i.  e.,  the  Picts,  English, 
etc.)  with  the  people  subject  to  them,  confer  great  and  no  ordinary 
honor.  By  the  saints  of  other  churches  also  shall  no  common  respect 
be  accorded  it.* 

"After  these  words,  going  down  from  the  little  hill  and  returning 
to  the  monastery,  he  sat  in  his  cell  writing  a  copy  of  the  Psalms, 
and  on  reaching  that  verse  of  the  thirty-third  Psalm  where  it  is 
written,  'But  they  that  seek  the  Lord  shall  lack  no  thing  that  is 
good:'  'Here,'  said  he,  *we  may  close  at  the  end  of  the  page;  let 
Baithin  write  what  follows.'  Well  appropriate  for  the  departing 
saint  was  the  last  verse  which  he  had  written,  for  to  him  shall  good 
things  eternal  be  never  lacking,  while  to  the  father  who  succeeded 
him  (Baithin),  the  teacher  of  his  spiritual  sons,  the  following 
(words)  were  particularly  apposite,  'Come,  my  sons,  hearken  unto 
me.  I  shall  teach  you  the  fear  of  the  Lord,*  since,  as  the  departing 
one  desired,  he  was  his  successor  not  only  in  teaching  but  also  in 
writing. 

"After  writing  the  above  verse  and  finishing  the  page,  the  saint 
enters  the  church  for  the  vesper  office  preceding  the  Sunday ;  which 
finished,  he  returned  to  his  little  room,  and  rested  for  the  night  on 
his  couch,  where  for  mattress  he  had  a  bare  flag  and  for  a  pillow 
a  stone,  which  at  this  day  stands  as  a  kind  of  a  commemorative 
monument  beside  his  tomb.  And  there  sitting  he  gives  his  last 
mandates  to  his  brethren,  in  the  hearing  of  his  servant  only,  saying, 
'These  last  words  of  mine  I  commend  to  you,  O  little  children,  that 
ye  preserve  a  mutual  charity  with  peace,  and  a  charity  not  feigned 
among  yourselves;  and  if  ye  observe  to  do  this  according  to  the 
example  of  the  holy  fathers,  God,  the  comforter  of  the  good,  shall 
help  you,  and  I,  remaining  with  Him,  shall  make  intercession  for 
you,  and  not  only  the  necessaries  of  this  present  life  shall  be  suffi- 
ciently supplied  you  by  Him,  but  also  the  reward  of  eternal  good, 
prepared  for  the  observers  of  things  Divine,  shall  be  rendered  you.* 
Up  to  this  point  the  last  words  of  our  venerable  patron   (when 

146 


Death  of  Columcille 


now)  passing  as  it  were  from  this  wearisome  pilgrimage  to  his 
heavenly  country,  have  been  briefly  narrated. 

"After  which,  his  joyful  last  hour  gradually  approaching,  the 
saint  was  silent.  Then  soon  after,  when  the  struck  bell  resounded 
in  the  middle  of  the  night,^  quickly  rising  he  goes  to  the  church, 
and  hastening  more  quickly  than  the  others  he  enters  alone,  and 
with  bent  knees  inclines  beside  the  altar  in  prayer.  His  servant, 
Diarmuid,  following  more  slowly,  at  the  same  moment  beholds, 
from  a  distance,  the  whole  church  inside  filled  with  angelic  light 
round  the  saint :  but  as  he  approached  the  door  this  same  light, 
which  he  had  seen,  quickly  vanished :  which  light,  a  few  others  of 
the  brethren,  also  standing  at  a  distance,  had  seen.  Diarmuid  then 
entering  the  church  calls  aloud  with  a  voice  choked  with  tears, 
'Where  art  thou.  Father?'  And  the  lamps  of  the  brethren  not  yet 
being  brought,  groping  in  the  dark,  he  found  the  saint  recumbent 
before  the  altar ;  raising  him  up  a  little,  and  sitting  beside  him,  he 
placed  the  sacred  head  in  his  own  bosom.  And  while  this  was 
happening  a  crowd  of  monks  running  up  with  the  lights,  and  seeing 
their  father  dying,  began  to  lament.  And  as  we  have  learnt  from 
some  who  were  there  present,  the  saint,  his  soul  not  yet  departing, 
with  eyes  upraised,  looked  round  on  each  side,  with  a  countenance 
of  wondrous  joy  and  gladness,  as  though  beholding  the  holy  angels 
coming  to  greet  him.  Diarmuid  then  raises  up  the  saint's  right 
hand  to  bless  the  band  of  monks.  But  the  venerable  father  himself, 
too,  in  so  far  as  he  was  able,  was  moving  his  hand  at  the  same  time, 
so  that  he  might  appear  to  bless  the  brethren  with  the  motion  of 
his  hand,  what  he  could  not  do  with  his  voice,  during  his  soul's 
departure.  And  after  thus  signifying  his  sacred  benediction,  he 
straightway  breathed  forth  his  life.  When  it  had  gone  forth  from 
the  tabernacle  of  his  body,  the  countenance  remained  so  long  glow- 
ing and  gladdened  in  a  wonderful  manner,  by  the  angelic  vision, 
that  it  appeared  not  that  of  a  dead  man  but  of  a  living  one  sleeping. 
In  the  meantime  the  whole  church  resounded  with  sorrowful  lamen- 
tations." 

So  went  to  his  death  the  founder  of  the  Scottish  nation, 
the  father  of  civilization  and  Christianity  both  in  Scot- 
land and  England,  and  after  Caesar  perhaps  the  most 
majestic  being  that  has  ever  trod  the  isle  of  Britain. 

1  The  saint,  as  Reeves  notes,  had  previously  attended  the  vespertinalia 
Dominicae  noctis  missa,  an  office  equivalent  to  the  nocturnal  vigil,  and  now 
at  the  turn  of  midnight  the  bell  rings  for  matins,  which  were  celebrated 
according  to  ancient  custom  a  little  before  daybreak. 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

<i  '^■— —  ,_^.^,^..^___^,_^^.^_.__,^,,,„^^^^^^„ 

2.  Illuminated  Manuscripts  and  Latin  Poems 

If  Columcille  was  the  author  of  both  the  Book  of  Kells 
and  the  Book  of  Durrow  as  was  long  believed  the  title 
of  consummate  artist  must  be  added  to  the  other  charac- 
terizations that  have  been  lavished  upon  him/  The 
famous  copy  of  the  Psalter  known  as  the  Cathach,^  long 
the  most  valuable  heirloom  in  that  branch  of  Colum- 
cille's  clan  that  issued  in  the  Ua  Domnaill  family,  Princes 
of  Tyrconnail,  is  accepted  as  being  his  handiwork  and 
indeed  as  the  very  transcription  from  Finnian's  set  of  the 
Vulgate  over  which  3,000  warriors  fell  at  Culdreimhne. 
Of  the  Latin  poems  attributed  to  Columcille  and  believed 
to  be  genuine  wholly  or  in  part  three  have  come  down 
to  us.^  They  are  the  Altus,  In  te  Christe  and  Noli 
Pater.  The  Altus  is  the  most  celebrated  and  was  quoted 
in  the  ninth  century  by  Rhabanus  Maurus.  It  describes 
the  Trinity,  the  angels,  the  creation  of  the  world  and  the 
fall  of  man,  the  deluge,  and  the  last  judgment.  The  poem, 
which  is  a  sort  of  early  Paradise  Lost,  consists  of  twenty- 
two  stanzas,  each  beginning  in  order  with  a  letter  of  the 
alphabet.    The  first  two  lines  run  as  follows: 

Altus  prosator,  vetustus  dierum  et  ingenitus, 
Erat  absque  origine  primordii  et  crepidine. 

1  Both  these  miracles  of  beauty  are  at  Trinity  CoUege,  Dublin.  The  colo- 
phon on  the  Book  of  Durrow  bears  the  name  "Columba." 

2  The  Cathach  or  Battler,  contained  in  a  shrine  made  for  it  in  the  eleventh 
century  by  the  order  of  Cathbar  Ua  Domnaill,  was  carried  to  the  Continent 
in  the  seventeenth  century  by  the  exiled  Domnaill  Ua  Domnaill.  It  was 
recovered  in  1802  by  Sir  Niall  Ua  Domnaill  and  was  opened  by  Sir  William 
Betham  soon  after.  Within  was  found  a  mass  of  vellum  hardened  into  a 
Bingrle  lump,  which,  when  the  leaves  were  separated,  was  found  to  contain 
part  of  a  Psalter  written  in  Latin  in  a  "neat,  but  hurried  hand."  Fifty 
leaves  remained,  containing  from  the  31st  to  the  106th  Psalm,  and  an  exam- 
ination of  the  text  showed  it  to  be  part  of  the  second  revision  of  the  Psalter 
by  St.  Jerome. 

3  They  are  contained  in  an  eleventh  century  manuscript,  the  Liber  Hym- 
norum. 

148 


Death  of  Columcille 


The  poem  has  been  variously  rendered  into  English, 
the  following  being  a  specimen: 

Ancient  of  Days;  enthroned  on  high; 
The  Father  unbegotten  He, 
Whom  space  containeth  not  nor  time. 
Who  was  and  is  and  aye  shall  be; 
And  one-born  Son  and  Holy  Ghost, 
Who  co-eternal  glory  share, 
One  only  God  of  Person  Three. 
We  praise,  acknowledge  and  declare.^ 

Curious  conceptions  of  the  physical  origins  of  clouds, 
rain  and  tides  are  given  in  the  stanza  beginning  with  the 
letter  I  ; 

In  three  quarters  of  the  sea 
Three  mighty  fountains  hidden  lie 
Whence  rise  through  whirling  water-spouts 
Rich-laden  clouds  that  clothe  the  sky; 
On  winds  from  out  his  treasure  House 
They  speed  to  swell  bud,  vine  and  grain; 
While  the  sea-shallows  emptied  wait 
Until  the  tides  return  again. 

3.   By  the  Time  of  Adamnan 

By  the  time  of  Adamnan  (624-704),  the  Christianiza- 
tion  of  Scotland  had  been  pretty  well  completed,  tho 
a  century  and  a  half  had  yet  to  pass  before  its  thorough 
Hibernicization.  Adamnan  became  ninth  abbot  of  lona 
and  was  perhaps  after  Columcille  the  greatest  of  that 
distinguished  and  enduring  line.  His  celebrity  as  a 
literary  man  in  a  period  when  there  was  very  little 
literature  in  Europe  outside  of  Ireland  and  its  intel- 
lectual dependencies  has  overshadowed  his  accomplish- 
ments in  politics,  in  diplomacy  and  in  the  Church.  He 
is  known  and  will  be  known  through  the  ages  as  primarily 

1  By  the  Rev.  Anthony  Mitchell.  An  excellent  translation  is  also  griven 
by  Alfred  Percival  Graves  in  the  Contemporary  Review  (London),  Sept.,  1920. 

149 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

the  biographer  of  St.  Columcille,  yet  this  was  a  work  per- 
formed during  the  intermittent  leisure  hours  of  a  life 
filled  with  action.  Adamnan  belonged  to  Columcille's 
own  family  and  was  born  twenty-seven  years  after  the 
death  of  his  great  kinsman.  Adamnan,  like  Columcille, 
whose  life  became  a  model  to  the  youth  of  Erin,  studied 
in  a  number  of  Ireland's  great  seats  of  learning,  then  in 
the  meridian  of  their  fame  and  influence,  and  in  a  bardic 
composition  embodying  a  memoir  of  the  High  Monarch 
Finnachta  there  is  given  a  story  of  his  student  days  which 
is  valuable  for  the  glimpse  it  gives  into  the  Irish  university 
life  of  the  period. 

Finnachta,  altho  of  the  blood  royal,  was  in  his  youth 
quite  poor.  He  had  a  house  and  wife  but  only  one  ox 
and  one  cow.  Now  the  king  of  Feara  Ross  strayed  to  the 
neighborhood  of  Finnachta's  house;  and  his  wife  and  a 
crowd  of  retainers  were  with  him.  Finnachta  struck 
the  ox  on  the  head  and  the  cow  on  the  head  and  feasted 
all  the  king's  people  sumptuously,  so  that  no  one  was 
hungry.  Then  the  king  and  queen  of  Feara  Ross  gave 
large  herds  of  cattle  to  the  generous  Finnachta  and  made 
him  a  great  man.  Shortly  after  this,  Finnachta,  not 
yet  king,  was  coming  with  a  large  troop  of  horse  to 
his  sister's  house,  and  as  they  rode  along  they  overtook 
Adamnan,  then  a  student,  traveling  the  same  road  with 
a  vessel  full  of  milk  on  his  back.  Anxious  to  get  out  of 
the  way  Adamnan  stumbled  and  fell,  spilling  all  the 
milk  and  breaking  the  jar  to  pieces.  He  ran  after  the 
cavalcade  and  said:  "O  good  man,  I  have  reason  to  be 
sad,  for  there  are  three  good  students  in  one  house  and 
they  have  us  as  two  messengers — for  there  is  always  one 
going  about  seeking  food  for  the  five,  and  it  came  to  my 
turn  to-day.      The  gathering  I  made  is  scattered  and, 

150 


Death  of  Columcille 


what  I  grieve  for  far  more,  the  borrowed  vessel  has 
been  broken  and  I  have  no  means  to  pay  for  it."  Then 
Finnachta  declared  he  would  make  it  all  right  and  he  kept 
his  word.  He  not  only  paid  for  the  vessel  but  he  brought 
the  scholars  to  his  own  house  and  their  teacher  along 
with  them;  he  fitted  up  the  ale-house  for  their  reception 
and  gave  them  such  abounding  good  cheer  that  the  pro- 
fessor, the  annals  say,  declared  Finnachta  would  one 
day  become  king  of  Ireland,  "and  Adamnan  shall  be  the 
head  of  the  wisdom  of  Erin,  and  shall  become  soul's 
friend  or  confessor  to  the  king."  } 

Adamnan  became  abbot  of  lona  in  679  when  he  was 
fifty-five,  five  years  after  Finnachta  became  king  of  Ire- 
land. The  monarch  had  never  lost  sight  of  the  boy  with 
the  jar,  whose  bearing  had  indicated  a  youth  of  promise. 
Adamnan  was  invited  to  the  court  and  was  ultimately 
made  the  king's  spiritual  adviser  or  anamchara. 

The  friendship  that  united  Adamnan  and  King  Fin- 
nachta was  duplicated  in  the  intimacy  between  Adamnan 
and  Aldfrid,  king  of  Northumbria,*  who  had  an  Irish 
mother  and  who  was  educated  in  Ireland  and  was  at  one 
time  apparently  a  schoolfellow  or  pupil  of  Adamnan. 
The  esteem  in  which  he  was  held  by  the  two  kings  bore 
fruit  on  the  occasions  on  which  he  acted  as  ambassador 
between  them.  One  of  these  diplomatic  missions  under- 
taken by  Adamnan  brings  into  relief  the  only  occasion 
in  Anglo-Saxon  history,  after  the  mission  of  Aidan,  on 
which  an  act  of  hostility  was  perpetrated  by  the  English 
against  the  nation  that  had  been  to  them  so  remarkable 
a  benefactor.  This  was  an  attack  on  Meath  by  Ecgfrith, 
the  predecessor,  brother  and  enemy  of  Aldfrid,  whose 
presence  in  Ireland  appears  to  have  been  its  inspiring 

1  He  talks  of  visits  to  "my  friend,  King  Aldfrid,  in  Saxonia"  (V.  Columbae, 
I,  XLVII). 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

motive,  and  the  carrying  away  of  a  number  of  prisoners. 
In  686,  following  the  accession  of  Aldfrid,  Adamnan 
undertook  at  the  instance  of  Finnachta  a  mission  to 
Northumbria  and  brought  back  to  Ireland  sixty  cap- 
tives. 

Two  years  later  he  again  visited  Aldfrid's  court  in 
Northumbria,  and  also,  it  appears,  visited  the  monasteries 
of  Wearmouth  and  Jarrow.  Bede  appears  to  have  known 
him  well  and  greatly  reverenced  him.  On  the  occasions  of 
his  visits  to  England  a  great  plague,  to  which  Bede 
movingly  alludes,  was  ravaging  the  country,  but  the  Irish 
and  the  Picts  appear  to  have  been  remarkably  spared 
by  it.  Adamnan  attributes  his  own  immunity  and  that 
of  his  countrymen  to  the  intercession  of  Columcille,  but 
the  personal  habits  induced  by  a  superior  civilization 
doubtless  played  their  part. 

4.  The  Hibernicizing  of  North  Britain 

In  692  Adamnan  resided  in  Ireland  and  he  was  there 
again  in  697 — it  was  round  the  earlier  of  these  two  dates 
that  he  seems  to  have  composed  the  major  part  of  the  life 
of  Columcille.  He  seems  to  have  been  the  influential 
figure  at  the  Parliament  of  Tara  held  in  697  and  caused 
to  be  reenacted  a  law  exempting  women  from  fighting, 
which  Columcille  had  caused  to  be  passed,  but  which 
the  passions  of  the  time  had  disregarded.  From  that 
date  the  edict  was  strictly  enforced  and  came  to  be  known 
as  the  Lex  Adamnani  or  Cain  Adhemhnain.  It  appears 
to  have  been  at  this  Parliament  that  the  questions  in 
respect  to  the  observance  of  Easter,  which  then  agitated 
so  many  minds,  were  discussed  and  that  the  Roman  views 
and  usages,  which  Adamnan  greatly  favored,  were  gen- 
erally adopted,  tho  as  early  as  634  they  began  to  be 

152 


Death  of  Columcille 


the  vogue  over  a  great  part  of  Ireland.  Adamnan  seems 
to  have  dwelt  in  Ireland  from  697  to  701 ;  and  Bede 
observes  that  he  crossed  from  Ireland  to  lona  the  summer 
before  he  died ;  and  alluding  to  the  variance  between  him- 
self and  his  brethren  at  lona,  who  could  not  be  induced 
to  forsake  the  observances  sanctioned  by  the  devotion  of 
Columcille,  adds:  "For  it  came  to  pass  that  before  the 
next  year  came  round  he  departed  this  life:  the  Divine 
Goodness  so  ordering  it  that,  as  he  was  a  man  most  earnest 
for  peace  and  unity,  he  should  be  taken  away  to  ever- 
lasting life  before  the  return  of  the  season  of  Easter  he 
should  be  obliged  to  differ  still  more  seriously  from  those 
who  were  unwilling  to  follow  him  in  the  way  of  truth." 
Adamnan,  tho,  like  Columcille,  of  noble,  and  even 
of  royal  birth,  led  a  life  of  solid  hard  work,  not  disdain- 
ing, any  more  than  his  great  predecessor,  to  assist  the 
brethren  in  the  manual  labor  of  building,  rowing,  and 
dragging  overland  ships  laden  with  the  hewn  pine  and 
oak  needed  in  their  operations.  In  spite  of  this,  his 
literary  work  must  have  been  extraordinarily  volu- 
minous.^ Latin  was  his  favorite  medium  of  expression, 
and  he  seems  to  have  had  a  good  working  knowledge  of 
Greek  and  Hebrew.  His  "De  Locis  Sanctis,"  from  which 
Bede  quotes,  and  which  has  happily  been  preserved,  is 
the  earliest  account  coming  from  modern  Christian 
Europe  of  the  condition  of  Eastern  lands  and  the  cradle 
of  Christianity.^    It  was  compiled  from  the  conversation 

1  In  the  prolog  to  his  "De  Locis  Sanctis"  lie  tells  us  how  he  worked, 
•writing  the  first  rough  drafts  of  his  compositions  on  waxed  tablets  (tabulae 
ceratae)  and  later  transferring  the  finished  copy  to  the  membranes.  Colum- 
cille and  his  companions,  when  traveling,  also  carried  such  tablets  with  them 
for  the  purpose  of  making  notes. 

*  The  reticences  of  Adamnan  are  as  remarkable  as  what  he  says.  He 
has,  for  example,  in  his  extant  works  no  reference  to  the  work  of  the  Irish 
missionaries  in  England,  though  the  chief  of  them,  Aidan,  Finan,  Colman  and 
the  others,  were  among  the  brethren  of  lona  in  his  time.  Never  was  there 
a  great  work  done  in  the  world  with  less  trumpeting  on  the  part  of  those 
who  did  it.  Were  it  not  for  foreign  testimony  we  would  know  very  little 
of  the  work  of  medieval  Irishmen  abroad,  and  indeed  we  know  of  only  a 
very  small  part  of  it. 

IS3 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

of  Arculf,  a  Gallic  bishop  who  visited  lona  after  he  had 
been  in  Palestine,  and  Adamnan  presented  a  copy  of  the 
work  to  King  Aldfrid.  Adamnan  is  credited  with  a  life 
of  St.  Patrick  as  well  as  with  poems  reproduced  by 
Tighernach,  the  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  and  the  Book 
of  Lecain.  He  is  said  to  have  written  a  history  of  the 
Irish  nation  up  to  his  own  times  and  an  Epitome  of  the 
Irish  Laws  of  Metre.  In  the  Liber  Hymnorum  there  is 
a  poem  in  Gaelic  called  Adamnan's  Prayer.  In  the 
Leaber  na  h'Uidhre  or  Book  of  the  Dun  Cow  is  the 
famous  Fis  Adhamhnain  or  Vision  of  Adamnan  attributed 
to  him,  a  truly  remarkable  precursor  of  Dante's  Divina 
Commedia,  in  which  the  "high  scholar  of  the  Western 
World"  visits  heaven  and  hell.  His  fame  endured  in  a 
degree  only  inferior  to  Columcille's.  Contemporaries 
like  Coelfrid  offered  their  tributes  to  his  character  and 
learning.  Bede  calls  him  "a  good  and  wise  man,  most 
nobly  versed  in  the  science  of  the  Scriptures."^  While 
Alcuin  classes  him  with  Columbanus  and  other  dis- 
tinguished Irishmen  as  "renowned  brothers,  masters  both 
of  manners  and  of  life."^ 

A  line  of  forty-nine  abbots,  of  whom  Adamnan  was  the 
ninth,  succeeded  Columcille  at  lona,  ending  with  Giol- 
lacrist  who  died  c.  1202.^  In  course  of  time  the 
spiritual  authority  of  lona  passed  eastward  with  the  suc- 
cess of  Irish  arms  to  the  more  central  seat  of  government 
which  the  Irish  kings  of  Scotland  established  at  Dunkeld. 
The  Danish  descents  on  lona  in  the  ninth  century  and 

1  "Vir  bonus  et  sapiens,  et  scientia  scriptarum  nobilissime  instructus." 

2  "Patricius,  Charanus,  Scottorum  gloria  gentis, 

Atque  Columbanus,  Congallus,  Adamnanus  atque, 
Praeclari  fratres,  morum  vitaeque  magistri. 

Hie  pietas  precibus  horum  nos  adjuvet  omnes." — (Migne,   LXXXVIII, 
col.  777.) 

3  Reeves,  Life  of  St.  Columba,  by  Adamnan  (pp.  269-413),  gives  a  list  of 
the  forty-nine  abbots  with  a  brief  biography  of  each  and  a  chronicle,  compiled 
from  the  Irish  annals,  of  the  chief  events  under  the  encumbency  of  each. 


Death  of  Columcille 


the  rise  of  Kells  in  Ireland  caused  a  diversion  in  the 
administration  of  the  Columbian  brotherhood,  and  when 
soon  after  the  Pictish  nation  yielded  to  Irish  rule  and 
Kenneth  mac  Alpin,  c.  847,  transferred  the  sovereignty 
to  the  eastern  side  of  Scotland,  Dunkeld  became  the 
spiritual  and  political  capital  of  the  united  kingdom  of 
the  Irish  and  the  Picts.  From  that  time  lona  continued 
to  decline^  and  Dunkeld,  which  is  numbered  among  the 
fifty-three  known  foundations  of  Columcille  and  his  dis- 
ciples in  Scotland,  took  its  place  as  the  capital  and  center 
of  the  national  life. 

Of  the  multitude  of  other  men — missionaries  and  kings, 
soldiers,  statesmen  and  scholars — who  aided,  supple- 
mented and  succeeded  Columcille  in  the  work  not  merely 
of  Christianizing  but  of  colonizing  and  Hibernicizing 
Scotland,  little  can  here  be  said.  There  were  noble  figures 
among  them — Modan  in  Stirling;  Drostan  in  Aberdour; 
Molurg  in  Lismore;  Ciaran  in  Kintyre;  Mun  in  Argyle; 
Buite  in  Pictland;  Moohar  on  the  eastern  coasts;  Fergus 
in  Caithness  and  Buchan  with  Maelrubha  of  Skye  and 
the  other  apostles  of  the  Western  Isles — these  are  but 
leading  names  in  a  great  host  that  Ireland  gave  to  Scot- 
land. There  were  none  of  them  that  were  not  wholly 
Irish.  The  missionaries  of  civilization  in  other  countries 
have  been  of  diverse  nationalities.  In  England  they  were 
Irish,  Roman,  and  Greek.  In  France  they  were  Greek, 
Roman,  Hebrew,  and  Irish.      Scotland  had  no  saint,  no 

lit  remained  the  favored  burial  place  of  the  kings  of  Scotland,  as  Shake- 
speare evidences: 

"Ross:     Where's  Duncan's  body? 
"Macduff:     Carried  to  Colmekill   (lona) 

The  sacred  storehouse  of  his  predecessors 

And  guardian  of  their  bones." 
"Ross: That  now 

Sweno,  the  Norway's  king,  craves  composition; 

Nor  would  we  deign  him  burial  of  his  men 

Till  he  disbursed  at  Saint  Colme's  Inch 

Ten  thousand  dollars  to  our  general  use." — (Macbeth,  Acts  I  and  II.) 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

prophet,  no  king,  no  leader  among  the  people,  who  was 
not  an  Irishman.  Irish  speech  and  Irish  civilization  were 
to  put  the  seal  of  Irish  authority  so  completely  on  Scot- 
land that  even  in  modern  eyes  it  remains  in  many  respects 
more  Gaelic  and  Irish  than  the  inland  provinces  of  the 
motherland.  To  other  lands  medieval  Irishmen  brought 
Christianity  and  culture.  To  Scotland  they  brought  the 
whole  Gaedhaltacht,  and,  dividing  Britain  almost  into 
halves,  added  the  northern  portion  as  a  sixth  Irish  prov- 
ince to  the  five  other  provinces  of  Ireland,  and  called  the 
whole  Scotia.^ 

1  See  appendix  B.  p.  314,  for  additional  details  concerning  the  Irish  king< 
dom  of  Scotland. 


156 


CHAPTER  XIII 
IRISH  PRINCIPALITY  IN  WALES 

I.  Gael  and  Sassenach  in  Britain.  2.  Irish  Clans  in  Britain.  3.  Irish 
Military  Expeditions  Abroad.  4.  Irish  Kings  in  Britain.  5.  Wales 
Medieval  Irish  Colony. 

I.  Gael  and  Sassenach  in  Britain 

WHILE  Irishmen  in  North  Britain  were  bending 
their  energies  to  the  work  of  conquering,  coloniz- 
ing and  civilizing  Caledonia,  another  conquest 
was  going  forward,  chiefly  under  the  direction  of  Irishmen 
of  the  center  and  south,  which  has  received  less  attention 
from  historians.  Had  there  been  no  Anglo-Jute-Saxon 
conquest  of  Great  Britain  these  two  Irish  conquests  would 
in  all  likelihood  have  been  decisive  of  the  future  of  the 
island.  They  would  have  issued  in  a  British  Isles  almost 
entirely  Irish,  with  the  Irish  tongue  the  prevalent  speech 
from  Kerry  to  Lincoln  and  from  the  Orkneys  to  the  Isle 
of  Wight,  and  with  the  equivalent  of  what  is  now  Wales 
pushed  eastwards  and  southwards  and  confined  to  a  jut- 
ting headland  between  the  estuary  of  the  Thames  and  the 
Wash,  or  more  probably  absorbed  in  the  kindred  Irish 
population.  But  there  was  an  Anglo-Jute-Saxon  invasion, 
so  that  the  Gael  and  the  Sassenach  met  on  the  broad  moors 
of  Britannia  and  fought  their  destiny  out.  The  issue  lay 
for  centuries  in  doubt,  but  eventually  the  Sassenach  proved 
the  stronger,  not  in  individual  prowess  indeed,  for  the 
Irishman  is  superior  in  physique  to  the  Englishman,*  but 
primarily  then  as  later  because  the  Gael  had  only  the 

1  The  Irish  are  probably  the  strongest,  tallest,  and  most  athletic  race  on 
earth,  and  their  record  in  the  world  of  sport  seems  to  make  this  abundantly 
clear.  But  see  "The  Irish  People;  Their  Height,  Form  and  Strength,"  by 
P.  E.  Hogan  (Dublin,  1899).  Irish  hatters  stock  larger  sizes  than  hatters  In 
Efngland.  The  English  made  a  remarkably  poor  comparative  showing  In  the 
recent  war  measurements. 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of  Britain 

small  island  of  Hibernia  behind  him,  while  the  Sassenach 
drew  his  strength  from  the  teeming  population  of  northern 
Europe. 

Thus  Nennius  says  the  invaders  were  constantly 
being  reinforced — "the  more  the  Saxons  were  vanquished 
the  more  they  sought  for  new  supplies  of  Saxons  from 
Germany.  Kings,  commanders,  and  military  bands  were 
invited  over  from  almost  every  province,  and  this  practice 
they  continued  till  the  reign  of  Ida."  A  statement  by 
Bede  implies  that  practically  the  entire  Anglic  people 
emigrated  from  the  Continent  en  masse — men,  women 
and  children — no  one  being  left  to  cultivate  the  land,  for, 
he  says,  the  land  "which  is  called  Angulus"  remained  a 
desert  till  the  day  in  which  he  wrote.  And  then  there 
was  another  reason  and  a  potent  one.  It  was  at  this  period 
that  the  Gaels  of  Ireland  were  turning  their  backs  on  the 
mirage  of  military  glory  and  were  preparing  to  spend 
themselves  in  the  nobler  engagement  against  the  forces 
of  ignorance  and  heathenisnio  From  the  time  of  Patrick 
there  is  no  record  of  any  raiding  expedition  going  forth 
from  the  Gaedhaltacht.  The  military  organization  of 
the  Fianna,  whose  exploits  are  celebrated  in  the  poems  of 
Oisin,  still  continued  to  exist,  but  it  gradually  disappeared, 
and  the  great  military  encampments,  like  Tara,  Aileach 
and  Cruachain,  in  which  the  Irish  kings  were  accustomed 
to  dwell  surrounded  by  permanent  fighting  forces,  lost 
their  military  character  around  the  seventh  century.^ 

1  Kells,  originally  a  military  stronghold,  later  the  head  of  the  Colombian 
foundations,  is  an  example,  as  the  dialog  between  Columcille  and  the  prophet 
Becc  indicates: 

"O  Becc,  tell  thou  to  me 
Kells,  the  wide,  pure  grassed, 
Whether  clerics  (will)  dwell  in  it, 
"Whether  warriors  (will)   abandon  it?" 
So    Becc    said: 

"Trains  who  are  amidst  it 
Shall  sing  praises  of  the  Lord's  Son; 
Its  warriors  shall  depart  from  its  threshold; 

There  will  be  a  time  when  it  will  be  secure." — (Leabar  Breac,  p.  32 
a-b;  Anecdota  Oxoniensia,  Ser.  5,  p.  306.) 


Irish  Principality  in  Wales 


In  this  long  contest  nothing  appears  more  remarkable 
than  the  lack  of  grit  in  the  Britons  themselves.  Even  the 
simple-minded  English  dwell  on  it:  "They  then  sent  to 
Angel,  bade  them  send  greater  help,  and  bade  them  to 
say  the  Brito-Welsh's  nothingness  and  the  land's  ex- 
cellencies.'" Three  centuries  of  Roman  dominance  had 
deprived  the  Briton,  originally  an  excellent  fighting  man, 
of  his  military  virtue.  The  main  fight  centered  around 
the  ambitions  of  the  Gael  and  the  Sassenach,  and  the 
"Brito-Welshman"  appears  as  little  better  than  a  pawn 
in  a  game  between  stronger  rivals.  The  chief  Brito- 
Welsh  resource  appears  to  have  been  flight.  Thus  from 
460  to  550  a  continual  stream  of  British  fugitives  crossed 
over  from  Britain  to  Armorica  and  there  established  a 
smaller  Britain  that  has  endured  to  this  day." 

The  Saxons  came  to  England  according  to  the  tradi- 
tional account,  invited  to  aid  the  Briton  against  the  Gael 
and  Pict  by  Vortigern,  whom  some  consider  to  have  been 
an  Irish  prince  ruling  the  Britons.^  Three  distinct  wars 
of  conquest  thus  came  to  be  waged  simultaneously  in  the 
island.  The  Irishmen  of  the  north  were  engaged  in  re- 
ducing Caledonia,  a  conquest  subsequently  completed  by 
them.  The  Angles,  Saxons  and  Jutes  were  successfully 
invading  Britain  from  the  east.  And  Irish  tribes,  chiefly 
of  Munster  stock,  were  taking  possession  of  Britannia 
Secunda  and  part  of  Britannia  Prima,  establishing  a 
colony  or  dependency  that  included  present  Wales  as  well 
as  Somerset,  Devon  and  Cornwall.  This  last  conquest  and 
settlement  have,  as  I  have  said,  received  relatively  small 
attention  from  historians,   chiefly  because  their  visible 

1  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle. 

2  Great  Britain  is  so  called  in  contradistinction  to  this  smaller  Britain 
(now  called  Brittany)  in  France.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  English  have 
no  right  to  the  name  Briton,  which  belongs  to  the  former  Celts  of  the 
country,  now  represented  by  the  Welsh. 

3  Rhys,  in  "The  Welsh  People,"  gives  reasons  for  this  view. 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

effects  have  not  endured  to  our  day.  Roughly  the 
dominion  of  the  Gael  in  West  Britain  or  Wales  lasted 
for  four  centuries — from  the  third  to  the  seventh  or  eighth, 
during  the  latter  part  of  which  period  it  passed  from 
being  an  Irish-speaking  to  being  a  Welsh-speaking 
country. 

2.    Irish  Clans  in  Britain 

Zeuss*  demonstrated  that  the  Irish  and  Welsh  languages 
w^ere  one  in  their  origin;  that  their  divergence  began  only 
a  few  centuries  before  the  Roman  period;  that  the  differ- 
ence between  them  was  very  small  when  Caesar  landed  in 
Britain — so  small  that  an  old  Hibernian  was  still  under- 
stood there;  and  that  both  nations,  Irish  and  British, 
were  identical  with  the  Celtae  or  Galli  of  the  Continent — 
namely  those  of  Gaul,  Spain,  Lombardy  and  the  Alpine 
countries — thus  asserting  the  intrinsic  unity  of  the  Celtic 
family.  By  the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries  of  our  era, 
however,  the  Irish  and  ''Bri to-Welsh"  languages  had 
diverged  very  considerably,  and  that  divergence  has  con- 
tinued and  increased  to  the  present  time.  The  Irish  in 
Wales,  divided  from  the  homeland  by  a  broad  and 
turbulent  sea,  became  absorbed  in  the  kindred  British 
population  around  them  or  returned  to  Ireland.  Mean- 
while the  Irish  in  North  Britain,  in  unceasing  close  con- 
tact with  the  motherland,  carried  their  arms,  culture  and 
speech  over  all  Caledonia  or  Scotland  and  even  into 
northern  England.  So  French  or  English  speech  did  not 
even  begin  to  make  headway  among  the  Irish  Scots  of 
Caledonia  till  the  thirteenth  or  fourteenth  century,  a 
period  when  Norman-French  was  the  prevailing  language 
throughout  England,  except  among  the  lower  orders. 

1  In  his  "Grammatica  Celtica,"  published  in  1854. 

i6o 


Irish   Principality  in  Wales 


The  conquest  of  North  Britain  or  Caledonia  had  been 
achieved  by  the  Irishmen  of  Ulster,  the  kinsmen  of  the 
princely  clans  of  the  O'Donels  and  O'Neills.  The  con- 
quest of  North  Wales  appears  likewise  to  have  been 
achieved  by  the  Ultonians.  South  Britain,  including 
south  Wales  and  the  Cornish  peninsula,  appear  to  have 
become  Irish  through  the  efforts  of  the  men  of  Munster. 
During  the  historic  period  there  appears  to  have  been  no 
fundamental  difference  in  the  Irish  nation.  All  the 
governing  clans,  septs  and  races,  equivalents  of  the  Roman 
gens,  point  to  a  common  origin,  all  are  Irish  and  Gaelic. 
The  Irish  carried  their  pedigree  to  an  incredible  an- 
tiquity. The  immediate  eponym  of  the  race  was  Galamh, 
from  Gal,  valor,  a  name  which  might  be  exprest  by  the 
Latin  miles,  a  knight,  whence  came  the  names  Milesius 
and  Milesian.  All  the  Milesian  families  traced  their 
names  to  Galamh  or  Milesius.  From  three  of  the  sons 
of  Milesius,  namely,  Heber,  Ir  and  Heremon,  who  in- 
vaded Ireland,  are  descended  all  the  Milesian  Irish  of 
Ireland  and  Scotland,  and  the  reputed  descent  from  these 
sons  colors  all  Irish  history.  From  Heber,  the  eldest 
brother,  the  provincial  kings  of  Munster  (of  whom  thirty- 
eight  were  high  monarchs  of  Ireland)  and  most  of  the 
noble  families  of  Munster  were  descended.  From  Ir, 
the  second  brother,  all  the  provincial  kings  of  Ulster  (of 
whom  twenty-six  were  high  monarchs  of  Ireland)  and 
all  the  old  and  noble  families  of  Ulster,  and  many  noble 
families  in  Leinster,  Munster  and  Connaught,  derive 
their  pedigrees. 

From  Heremon,  the  youngest  of  the  three  brothers,  and 
the  chief  of  them  from  the  number  and  distinction  of  his 
descendants,  according  to  Irish  genealogical  compila- 
tions, were  descended  one  hundred  and  fourteen  monarchs 

12  i6i 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

of  Ireland,  the  provincial  kings  and  Heremonian  nobility 
and  gentry  of  Leinster,  Connaught,  Meath,  Orgiall, 
Tirowen,  Tyrconnell,  and  Clan-na-boy,  the  three  kings 
of  Dalriada,  and  all  the  kings  of  Scotland  from  Fergus 
Mor,  son  of  Earca,  down  to  the  Stuarts.  The  issue  of 
Ithe  is  not  accounted  among  the  Milesian  Irish  or  Clan- 
na-Mile  as  being  descended  not  from  Milesius  but  from 
his  uncle  Ithe,  of  whose  posterity  there  were  also  some 
monarchs  of  Ireland  and  many  provincial  or  half- 
provincial  kings  of  Munster.  That  country  upon  its 
first  division  was  allocated  to  the  sons  of  Heber  and  to 
Lughaidh,  son  of  Ithe,  whose  posterity  continued  there 
accordingly/ 

The  points  to  be  dwelt  on  are  that  the  Munster  Irish 
are  in  the  main  the  reputed  descendants  of  Heber,  as 
distinguished  from  the  reputed  descendants  of  the  other 
two  sons  of  Milesius,  Ir  and  Heremon,  in  most  of  the 
rest  of  Ireland,  and  that  these  Munster  Irish  had  certain 
characteristics  that  distinguished  them.  They  were 
among  the  first  to  receive  the  Christian  faith  before  St. 
Patrick.  Roman-British  missionaries  were  among  them, 
it  would  appear,  at  the  beginning  of  the  third  century.^ 

1  The  pedigrees  of  the  old  Irish  families  that  have  been  saved  from  the 
wreck  of  ages  are  among  the  most  curious  and  valuable  historic  records  in 
our  possession.  Their  accuracy  and  genuineness  have  been  fully  demonstrated 
as  far  as  it  has  been  possible  to  trace  and  test  them,  which  appears  to  be 
where  they  all  converge  round  the  fourth  century — beyond  that  is  uncertainty. 
There  is  no  coimtry  in  Europe,  with  the  exception  of  Italy  perhaps,  that 
has  anything  that  in  any  way  approaches  them.  There  are  families  in  Ireland 
that  can  trace  their  pedigrees  back  to  a  point  farther  in  history  than  the 
whole  English  nation.  Irish  pedigrees  are  one  of  the  indisputable  evidences 
of  ancient  Irish  culture,  for  it  is  inconceivable  that  a  family  could  cherish 
and  preserve  its  family  records  from  generation  to  generation,  as  the  Irish 
families  and  clans  are  shown  to  have  done,  without  a  considerable  degree 
of  social  self-consciousness  and  mental  cultivation.  The  accumulation  of 
those  that  have  been  preserved  is  extraordinary.  The  best  handbook  on  the 
subject  is  O'Harts'  "Irish  Pedigrees"  (2  vols.);  Douglas  Hyde  has  an  inter- 
esting chapter  on  them  in  his  "Literary  History";  while  Eoin  MacNeill 
illuminates  their  use  as  historic  signposts  in  a  series  of  articles  in  the 
New   Ireland   Review    (1904-5). 

2  See  Zimmer,  Pelagius  in  Ireland   (Berlin). 

162 


Irish  Principality  in  Wales 


The  Ogham  and  other  stone  inscriptions  found  in  Ireland 
are  far  more  numerous  among  them  than  elsewhere. 
Distinguishing  marks  such  as  these  have  enabled  investi- 
gators to  differentiate  between  the  Irish  clans  that  peopled 
West  Britain,  and  the  conclusion  has  been  that  the 
Cornish  peninsula  and  South  Wales  were  in  the  hands 
of  the  Munster  men,  while  North  Wales  and  Scotland 
went  to  the  more  northerly  Irish  people. 

3.   Irish  Military  Expeditions  Abroad 

The  foreign  expeditions  from  Ireland  coming  within 
the  historic  period  may  be  said  to  begin  with  the  reign 
of  the  celebrated  Cormac,  son  of  Art  and  grandson  of 
Conn  of  the  Hundred  Battles — who  reigned  over  Ireland 
for  forty  years  (226-266  A.  D.) ,  for  the  Annals  of  the  Four 
Masters,  quoting  the  Annals  of  Tighernach,  tell  us  that 
in  the  year  240  A.  D.  Cormac,  the  high  king,  sailed  across 
the  high  sea  and  obtained  the  sovereignty  of  Alba 
(Britain). 

Frequent  accounts,  which  Roman  writers  amplify,  are 
given  in  the  legends  of  the  Irish  kings  and  in  Irish  litera- 
ture generally,  of  warlike  expeditions  from  Ireland  to 
Alba  and  Gaul  and  of  settlements  and  intermarriages  in 
those  countries.  The  Glossary  of  Cormac,  mac^  Culinan, 
a  production  of  the  ninth  century,  tells  us  that  "great 
was  the  power  of  the  Gael  over  Britain,  and  they  con- 
tinued in  this  power  till  long  after  the  coming  of  Patrick" 
and  that  "Crimthann  Mor  (or  Criffan  the  Great),  who 
reigned  for  thirteen  years,  was  king  over  Ireland  and 
Britain  to  the  British  Channel.""     Keating  tells  us  that 

1  "Mac"  means  son  or  descendant;  "Ua"  (O)  means  grandson  or  descendant; 
"Ni"  means  granddaughter  or  descendant.  Where  "mac,"  as  in  this  case,  is 
used  before  the  establishment  of  surnames  (tenth  and  eleventh  centuries) 
the  initial  letter  is  in  lower  case  preceded  by  a  comma. 

2  Saiias  Chormaic,  ninth  century,  edited,  Stokes,  1868. 

163 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 


it  was  this  Crimthann  who  gained  victories  and  ex- 
tended his  sv/ay  over  Alba,  Britain  and  Gaul,  as  the 
Shanachie  tells  us  in  the  following  rann: 

"Crimthann,  son  of  Fidach,  ruled 
The  Alban  and  the  Irish  lands, 
Beyond  the  clear  blue  seas  he  quelled 
The  British  and  the  Gallic  might."  ^ 

It  was  during  the  reigns  of  Eochaidh  Muighmeadhoin 
(358-366),  of  Crimthann  Mor  (366-379),  and  of'Niall 
of  the  Nine  Hostages  (379-405),  that  the  Irish  invasion 
and  conquest  of  a  large  portion  of  Britain  became  con- 
solidated. More  than  one  of  the  Irish  kings  assumed 
the  title  of  King  of  Alba  (Britain) ;  and  of  one  of  them, 
Miurchartach,  son  of  Earca,  who  died  in-  533,  it  is  re- 
ported that,  in  addition  to  his  Irish  titles,  he  was  styled 
king  of  the  Britons,  Franks  and  Saxons.^ 

Readers  of  history  are  familiar  with  the  Roman 
accounts  of  the  blows  dealt  the  empire  in  Britain  by  the 
Picts  and  the  Irish  Scots.  The  ancient  chroniclers  are 
generally  assumed  to  represent  that  the  Irish  military 
taking  part  in  these  invasions  all  came,  like  the  Picts, 
from  the  north.  But  Ammianus  Marcellinus,  "an  old 
soldier  and  a  Greek"  as  he  calls  himself,  writing  380-390, 
expressly  states  that  the  Picts  and  the  Irish  arrived  by 
different  ways  (per  diversa  vagantes).  Bede  has  a  passage 
to  a  similar  effect,  indicating  that  the  Irish  naval  forces 
invaded  Britain  from  the  west,  that  is  directly  from 
Ireland,  for  the  Irish  or  Scoti  did  not  then  inhabit  present 
Scotland  in  any  great  number. 

The  invasion  was  organized  and  persistent.  At  the 
year  360  we  find  one  of  the  earliest  Roman  references  to 
the  Irish  "Scoti"  as  cooperating  with  the  Picts  in  raids 

1  Porus  Peasa  na  h-Eireann   (History  of  Ireland). 

2  Irish  Nennlus.  pub.  of  I.  A.  S.,  180. 

164 


Irish  Principality  in  Wales 


on  the  regions  of  the  northern  stations,  and  as  they  were 
accused  of  having  by  so  acting  broken  the  peace  that  had 
been  agreed  upon  there  had  evidently  been  earlier  fight- 
ing: "The  affairs  of  Britain  became  troubled  in  conse- 
quence of  the  incursions  of  the  Picts  and  Irish,  w^ho, 
breaking  the  peace  (nupta  quiete  condicta)  to  which  they 
had  agreed  were  plundering  the  districts  on  their  borders, 
and  keeping  in  constant  alarm  the  provinces  (i.  e.,  of 
Britain)  exhausted  by  former  disasters.  Caesar  (Julian 
the  Apostate,  360-363),  proclaimed  emperor  at  Paris, 
having  his  mind  divided  by  various  cares,  feared  to  go  to 
the  aid  of  his  subjects  across  the  Channel  (as  we  have 
related  Constans  to  have  done)  lest  he  should  leave  the 
Gauls  without  a  governor,  while  the  Alemanni  were  still 
full  of  fierce,  warlike  intentions."^ 

Four  years  later  the  same  writer  tells  us  the  "Picts, 
Irish,  Saxons  and  Attacotti  prest  the  Britains  with 
incessant  invasions."  And  again  at  368  he  says:  "Valen- 
tinian  (the  emperor)  having  left  Amiens  and  being  on 
his  way  to  Treves,  then  the  capital  of  the  western  pre- 
fecture, received  the  disastrous  intelligence  that  Britain 
was  reduced  by  the  ravages  of  the  united  barbarians  to 
the  lowest  extremity  of  distress,  that  Nectarides,  the  count 
of  the  sea  coast,  had  been  slain  in  battle,  and  that  the 
commander  Fultofondes  had  been  taken  prisoner  by  the 
enemy  in  an  ambuscade.  Jovinus  applied  for  the  aid  of 
a  powerful  army.  Last  of  all,  on  account  of  the  many 
formidable  reports,  Theodosius  (the  elder)  was  ap- 
pointed to  proceed  to  Britain  and  ordered  to  make  great 
haste.  At  that  time  the  Picts,  the  Attacotti,  a  very  war- 
like people,  and  the  Irish  were  all  roving  over  dififerent 
parts  of  the  country  and  committing  great  ravages."    In 

lAmmianus  Marcellinus,  XX,  I. 

I6S 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

the  battle  that  immediately  followed,  Theodosius  drove 
back  the  Irish  and  the  Picts  from  the  city  'Svhich  was 
anciently  called  Lugdun  (Celt,  the  fort  of  Lug) 
(London),  but  is  now  known  as  Augusta."  Then  ''he 
(Theodosius)  established  stations  and  outposts  on  the 
frontier  and  he  so  completely  covered  the  province  which 
had  yielded  subjection  to  the  enemy  that  it  was  again 
brought  under  its  legitimate  rule  and  by  the  desire  of  the 
emperor  called  Valentia,"  that  is  the  part  above  Hadrian's 
wall. 

Claudian,  the  Alexandrian  poet,  adds  to  this  by  telling 
us  that  Theodosius  "followed  the  Irishman  with  wan- 
dering sword  and  clove  the  waters  of  the  northern  ocean 
with  his  daring  oars,"  treading  "the  sands  of  both  the 
tidal  seas,"  so  that  "Icy  Ireland  weeps  for  the  heaps  of 
Irish  slain."* 

4.   Irish  Kings  in  Britain 

Among  the  Irish  kings  daring  enough  to  attack  the 
Roman  armies  in  their  own  strongholds  the  most  formid- 
able appears  to  have  been  Niall  of  the  Nine  Hostages 
(d.  405),  who  in  his  last  years  practically  brought  the 
greater  part  of  Britain  under  Irish  rule.  The  Romans 
never  entirely  conquered  Britannia  Secunda,  as  what  is 

1  Two  passages  in  Claudian  illustrate  the  campaigns  of  Theodosius,  368, 
369.  In  the  Panegyric  on  the  Third  Consulship  of  Honorius  (A.  D.  395)  we 
read,  vv,   54-6: 

Ille  leues  Mauros  nee  falso  nomine  Pictos 

Edomuit  Scottumque  uago  mucrone  secutus 

Fregit  Hyperboreas  remis  audacibus  undas, 
and  in  the  Panegyric  on  the  Fourth  Consulship  (A.  D.  397)  vv,  28  seq.: 
debellatorque  Britanni 

Litoris  ac  pariter  Boreae  uastator  et  Austri. 

Quid  rigor  aeternus,  caeli  quid  frigora  prosunt 

Ignotumque  fretum?    maduerunt  Saxone  fuso 

Orcades;  incaluit  Picorum  sanguine  Thyle; 

Scottorum  cumulos  fleuit  glacialis  Hiuerne. 
The  first  of  these  passages  suggests  that  Theodosius  pursued  the  Irish 
across  the  sea,  or  at  least  made  a  naval  demonstration  in  the  Irish  Channel, 
and  this  is  perhaps  supported  by  a  passage  in  Pacatus,  Panegyric,  C.  5:  at- 
trttan  pedestribus  praeliis  Britanniam  referam?  Saxo  consumptus  bellis 
naualibus  ofEeretur  redactum  ad  paludes  suas  Scotum  loquar? 

166 


Irish  Principality  in  Wales 


now  Wales  was  then  called,^  and  strong  legionary  stations 
at  Chester,  the  Roman  Deva,  and  at  Caerleon,  the  Roman 
Isca  Silurum,  were  established  by  them  as  barriers  against 
the  Irish  invaders. 

Against  King  Niall  in  the  closing  years  of  the  fourth 
century  Rome  sent,  in  the  person  of  Flavius  Stilicho,  her 
ablest  general.  The  organized  strength  of  the  Irish 
attacks,  on  the  land  and  on  the  sea,  is  mirrored  in  the 
glowing  words  of  Claudian,  who,  speaking  in  the  person 
of  Britannia,  says  of  Stilicho:  "By  him  was  I  protected 
when  the  Irishman  moved  all  Ireland  against  me  and 
the  sea  foamed  under  his  hostile  oars."^ 

From  another  of  the  poet's  eulogies  it  appears  that  the 
fame  of  the  Roman  legion,  which  had  guarded  the 
frontiers  of  Britain  against  the  invading  Irish  and  Picts, 
procured  for  it  the  distinction  of  being  one  of  the  bodies 
summoned  to  the  banner  of  Stilicho  when  the  Goths 
threatened  Rome:  "There  arrived  also  the  legion  spread 
out  over  the  furthermost  Britons,  which  bridles  the  fierce 
Irishman  and  examines  on  the  dying  Pict  the  hideous 
pictures  punctured  by  the  steel.'" 

With  the  withdrawal  of  the  Roman  forces  from  Britain 
at  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century  the  Irish  appear  to 
have  extended  their  sway  over  the  whole  of  what  is  now 

1  No  legion  appears  in  the  western  district  of  Britain  in  the  Notitia  Digr- 
nitatum,  which  represents  the  state  of  civil  and  military  services  in  the 
Empire  in  the  first  years  of  the  fifth  century. 

2  Totam  cum  Scotus  lernem  movit, 
Et  infesto  spumavit  remige  Tethys. 
lUius  effectum  curis  ne  tela  tiraerera 
Scottica  ne  Pictum  tremerem,  ne  litore  toto. 

Prospicerem  dubiis  uenturum  Saxona  uentis.     (Do  Consulatu  Stilichonls, 
ii,  247  seq.,  composed  A.  D.  399.) 
St.  Patrick  himself  appears  to  have  been  one  of  the  captives  of  Niall's 
fleets  operating  in  the  mouth  of  the  Severn,  for  concerning  this  very  period 
he  writes  in  his  "Confession":     "I  was  about  sixteen  years  of  age  when  I 
was  brought  captive  into  Ireland  with  many  thousand  persons." 
aVenit  et  extremis  legio  praetenta  Britannis, 
Quae  Scoto  dat  froena  traci,  ferroque  notatas 
Perlegit  examines  Picto  moriente  flguras.     (De  Bello  Gothico,  416-S.) 


167 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

England.  ''The  barbarians  drive  us  into  the  sea,  the  sea 
throws  us  back  upon  the  barbarians"  is  the  purport  of  one 
of  the  "Groans  of  the  B  ritons"  as  those  groans  were  directed 
towards  Aetius  and  Rome.  Gildas,  writing  in  the  first 
half  of  the  sixth  century,  says  that  the  Irish  "wafted  both 
by  the  strength  of  oarsmen  and  the  blowing  wind  break 
through  the  boundaries  and  spread  slaughter  on  every 
side,  and  like  mowers  cutting  down  the  ripe  corn,  they  cut 
up,  tread  under  foot,  and  overrun  the  whole  country."^ 

During  the  reign  of  King  Dathi  (405-428),  the  nephew 
of  Niall  of  the  Nine  Hostages  and  his  immediate  successor 
on  the  throne  of  Ireland,  Irish  forces  penetrated  beyond 
Britain  into  Gaul,  either  as  the  opponents  or  the  allies^ 
of  the  Romans.  King  Dathi  was  himself  killed  in  the 
region  of  the  Alps,  whither  he  appears  to  have  gone  for 
the  purpose,  among  other  things,  of  avenging  the  death 
of  his  uncle,  Niall,  who  had  been  killed  on  the  banks  of 
Loire.^  Dathi  was  carried  by  his  legionaries  back  to  Ire- 
land and  was  buried  in  the  royal  cemetery  at  Rath 
Croghan,  where  the  great  red  monumental  pillar  stone, 
raised  according  to  tradition  above  his  remains,  still  defies 
the  waste  of  ages. 

"And  there  was  buried 
Dathi,  the  last  renowned  high-king  who  reigned 
Ere  Faith  came  to  Erin ;  he  at  warfare 
In  far-off  Latin  lands  had  burned  the  home 
Of   a  most  holy  hermit  and  had  died, 
Slain  by  God's  lightning  on  the  Alps."  * 

iDe  Excldio  et  Conquestu  Britanniae,  Migne,  Pat.  Lat.,  LXIX,  col.  329; 
Mon.  Germ.  Hist.,  Auct.  Antiquiss.,  13. 

2  S.  Hieronymi  Epist.  11.  adv.  Jovin  and  context.  St.  Jerome,  writing 
from  Treves,  is  voucher  for  the  existence  of  an  Irish  legion  there. 

8  The  book  of  Lecain  says  of  the  monarch  that  after  fighting  many  battles 
in  Eire  and  Alba  "Dathi  went  with  the  men  of  Eire  to  Leatha  (i.  e.,  Letavia 
or  Brittany)  until  he  reached  the  Alps  to  avenge  the  death  of  Niall."  For 
the  legend  of  the  Slaying  of  Niall  of  the  Nine  Hostages  (Oruin  Neill  Noi- 
giallaig)  see  the  version  edited  by  Prof.  Kuno  Meyer  (in  Otia  Merseiana,  ii, 
84  seq.) 

4  The  Tain,  Epil.  (Writing  of  the  Tain),  translation  by  Hutton,  p.  448. 
See  the  poem  of  Torna-Eices  on  the  famous  men  and  women,  who  lay  at 
Rath  Croghan,  published  by  de  Jubainville  in  Revue  Celtique,  17,  280,  seq. 
A  reproduction  of  Dathi's  grave  and  pillar  stone  is  given  in  Proceedings,  Roy. 
Irish  Acad.,  1879.  p.  117. 

i68 


Irish  Principality  in  Wales 


Gildas  talks  of  the  Britons  eventually  overthrowing  the 
Irish  enemies  "who  had  for  so  many  years  been  living 
in  their  country,"  by  which  he  means  not  Wales  but 
Britain.  However,  it  is  certain  that  the  Irish  formed  a 
still  strong  military  and  colonizing  power  in  Britain  in 
the  days  of  Gildas.  The  historian  of  the  Britons  says 
that  after  the  departure  of  Maximus  and  his  death  in 
the  year  388  at  Aquileia,  Britain  "utterly  ignorant  as  she 
was  of  the  art  of  war  groaned  in  amazement  for  many 
years  under  the  cruelty  of  two  foreign  nations — the  Irish 
from  the  northwest,  and  the  Picts  from  the  north."  From 
other  passages  it  would  really  seem  as  if  the  Romans  suc- 
ceeded in  driving  the  Irish  over  the  Mare  Hibernicum 
on  some  occasions:  "So  did  our  illustrious  defenders  (the 
Romans)  vigorously  drive  the  enemies'  band  beyond  the 
sea,  if  any  could  so  escape  them ;  for  it  was  beyond  those 
same  seas  that  they  transported,  year  after  year,  the 
plunder  which  they  had  gained,  no  one  daring  to  resist 
them." 

Their  departure  was,  however,  only  for  a  brief  space. 
When  the  Romans  had  gone  "they  hastily  land  again 
from  their  boats  in  which  they  had  been  carried  beyond 
the  Cichican  valley"  (Irish  Sea).  "Moreover  having 
heard  of  the  departure  of  our  friends  and  their  resolution 
never  to  return,  they  seized  with  greater  boldness  than 
before  on  all  the  country  towards  the  extreme  north  as 
far  as  the  wall."^ 

From  407,  when  the  tyrant  Constantine  crossed  with 
the  Roman  armies  to  Gaul,  to  446  (the  third  consulship  of 
Aetius)  Irish  power  seems  to  have  been  consolidating  over 
all  Britain.  It  appears  to  have  reached  its  high-water 
mark  round  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century.    As  it  receded 

ID©  Excidio  Britanniae,  Liber  Querulus,  Migne,  Pat.  Lat,  LXIX,  cols. 
329-92;  Monumenta  Germ.  Hist.,  Auct.  Antiquiss.,  13. 

169 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

in  the  south  before  the  combination  of  Briton  and  Saxon, 
it  took  a  wider  sweep  in  what  is  now  Scotland,  completely 
conquering  and  incorporating  it  within  the  empire  of  the 
Gael. 

5.  Wales  Medieval  Irish  Colony 

And  now  with  regard  to  the  permanent  results  of  these 
Irish  expeditions  and  what  remained  of  the  Irish  occupa- 
tion of  Britain  as  the  Angles  and  Saxons  overran  the 
country. 

There  remained  two  distinct  settlements  of  the  Irish 
in  Britannia  Secunda  or  Wales:  (i)  of  the  Munster 
tribes  in  South  Wales,  Somerset,  Devon  and  Cornwall; 
and  (2)  of  other  Irish  in  the  Isle  of  Man,  Anglesey  and 
other  parts  of  Gwynedd  or  North  Wales. 

Early  writers  pointed  to  a  Gaelic  element  in  the  topo- 
graphical nomenclature  of  West  Britain  and  concluded 
that  the  country  was  once  occupied  by  Irish  people, 
whence  they  were  supposed  to  have  been  driven  into 
Ireland  by  the  advancing  Britons  or  Cymri,  as  they  came 
later  to  be  called,  and  as  the  Welsh  call  themselves  in  the 
Welsh  tongue.  This  was  the  natural  and  reasonable  con- 
clusion at  the  time,  but  our  present  knowledge  compels 
us  to  adopt  a  different  view,  namely,  that,  without  prej- 
udice to  the  existence  at  an  anterior  period  of  Irish  tribes 
in  West  Britain,  the  numerous  traces  of  Gaelic  names 
found  there  are  derived  from  the  Irish  invasions  and 
occupations  in  the  Roman  period  which  I  have  just  been 
describing. 

The  Rev.  W.  Basil  Jones,  bishop  of  St.  David's,  sum- 
ming up  his  researches  on  the  subject  in  his  "Vestiges  of 
the  Gael  in  Gwynedd"  (North  Wales),  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  Irish  occupied  the  whole  of  Anglesey, 

170 


Irish   Principality  in  Wales 


Carnarvon,  Merioneth,  and  Cardigan,  with  a  portion  at 
least  of  Denbighshire,  Montgomeryshire  and  Radnor- 
shire, and  that  the  same  clans  that  occupied  Anglesey  and 
Gwynedd  also  occupied  the  Isle  of  Man,  which,  as  is  well 
known,  was  an  Irish  possession  before  the  Norman  in- 
vasion. 

Dr.  Jones's  work  was  brought  out  in  185 1  and  in  it  he 
showed  that  Irishmen  were  in  possession  of  North  Wales 
at  the  time  of  the  collapse  of  Roman  rule  in  Britain. 
Since  the  appearance  of  his  work  our  knowledge  on  this 
subject  has  widened  very  considerably  and  we  are  now 
in  possession  of  evidence  which  shows  that  not  only  North 
Wales  but  South  Wales  as  well  were  Irish  dependencies. 
The  invasion  and  extent  of  the  settlement  of  the  Irish  in 
South  and  West  Britain  are  established  by  the  discovery 
of  Ogham  inscriptions. 

Ogham  is  a  purely  Irish  form  of  writing  and  Ogham 
inscriptions  have  been  found  only  in  Ireland,  the  Isle 
of  Man,  Scotland,  Wales  and  the  southwest  of  England. 
More  than  five-sixths  of  the  known  inscriptions  have  been 
found  in  Ireland  itself,  and  it  is  to  be  noted  that  more 
Oghams  have  been  found  in  Wales  than  in  Scotland,  the 
character  of  which  as  an  Irish  province  has  never  been 
lost  sight  of.  The  total  number  of  known  inscriptions 
appears  to  be  about  360  and  of  the  Irish  inscriptions,  num- 
bering about  300,  five-sixths  have  been  found  in  what  are 
now  the  counties  of  Kerry,  Cork  and  Waterford.  Scot- 
land has  16  Oghams;  the  Isle  of  Man  has  6;  in  Devon 
and  Cornwall  there  are  5;  Wales  has  over  30  Oghams, 
of  which  13  are  in  Pembrokeshire,  4  in  Brecknock,  2  in 
Glamorgan,  i  in  Cardigan,  6  in  Carmarthen,  and  only 
I  in  North  Wales.  In  Hampshire  there  is  i,  and  this  is 
interesting  as  showing  the  extent  of  the  Irish  military 

171 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

colonization  across  Monmouth,  Gloucester,  Somerset  and 
[Wilts  into  what  is  regarded  as  purely  English  territory; 
in  the  rest  of  England  none. 

No  Oghams  have  been  found  on  the  Continent,  but  at 
Biere  in  Saxony  there  are  stone  tablets  bearing  unintel- 
ligible syllables  traced  in  Ogham  characters,  possibly  the 
work  of  some  traveling  Gael  who  knew  just  a  little  of  the 
craft.  All  the  inscriptions  that  have  been  deciphered  and 
interpreted  belong  to  the  same  language — an  early  form 
of  Irish — except  a  few  in  northeastern  Scotland,  which 
are  said  to  be  in  the  Pictish  language.  The  distribution 
of  the  inscriptions  clearly  corresponds  to  the  region  of 
Irish  influence  in  the  period  that  followed  the  withdrawal 
of  the  Roman  legions  from  Britain.  The  bulk  of  the 
Ogham  inscriptions  are  ascribed  to  the  fifth  and  sixth 
centuries,  and  their  disuse  appears  to  have  come  about 
consequent  on  the  spread  of  Christianity  and  Latin  learn- 
ing and  letters.^ 

The  Ogham  inscriptions,  which  are  engraved  on  stone 
pillars  in  various  parts  of  Wales,  were  discovered  after 
Dr.  Jones  had  written  his  book  and  they  constitute 
unquestionable  evidence  of  the  prolonged  presence  of 
Irish  people  in  Wales.  They  confirm  Dr.  Jones's  original 
conclusions  but  show  that  he  did  not  go  far  enough.  They 
show  that  practically  the  whole  of  Wales  was  long  an 
Irish  possession.  The  Ogham  inscriptions  are  mostly  of 
an  obituary  or  mortuary  character,  connected  with  relig- 
ious motives,  pagan  or  Christian.  No  list  of  Irish  nobles 
or  kings  or  fact  of  great  historical  value  is  found  in  them. 

The  Welsh  inscriptions,  like  the  others,  are  couched  in 
the  Irish  language.  Over  twenty  of  them  have  a  Latin 
rendering,  a  thing  rare  in  Ireland.      There  have  been 

1  MacNelll.  Royal  Irish  Acad.,  1907-9. 

172 


Irish  Principality  in  Wales 


found  over  the  same  region  in  south  Britain  seventy  other 
non-Ogham  inscriptions  in  Latin — all  of  them  judged  to 
be  Irish,  for  the  pillar  stone  with  an  inscription  is  a  dis- 
tinguishing element  in  Irish  archeology.  The  Latin 
inscriptions  in  the  main  are  in  Irish  minuscules  of  the 
period,  which  appear  indeed  to  have  been  the  only  form 
of  writing  known  and  practised  either  in  Wales  or 
England  till  the  Normans  introduced  the  Caroline  charac- 
ters.' 

It  is  made  clear  then  that  at  a  time  judged  to  be  during 
the  third  and  fourth  centuries,  when  Roman  power  was 
still  strong  in  Britain,  the  western  regions  were  invaded 
and  settled  by  Irish  colonists  and  soldiers  with  their 
families.  Thus  is  explained  the  presence  in  Wales  and 
the  Cornish  peninsula  of  a  substantial  Irish-speaking 
element  in  the  population.  On  the  other  hand,  evidence 
of  the  activity  of  the  Romans  in  South  Wales  in  the  fourth 
century  is  of  the  scantiest.  Between  the  Irish  in  Wales 
and  Ireland  there  was  maintained  a  regular  intercourse, 
an  intercourse  testified  to,  among  other  things,  by  the 
great  abundance  of  Roman  coins  found  on  the  east  coast 
of  Ireland. 

Hereditary  family  names  did  not  come  into  existence 
till  the  eleventh  century,  but  clan  or  sept  names  existed 
from  the  beginning.  Some  of  the  Irish  people  in  south 
Wales  were  known  by  the  same  clan  names  as  those  in 
Ireland,  as  in  the  case  of  Ui  Liathain,  an  Irish  family,  or 
gens,  settled  in  ancient  Desmond,  between  Cork  and  Lis- 
more,  having  also  a  branch  in  Wales.^    Cormac,  son  of 

1  The  epitaph  of  Cadvan,  Irish  king  of  Gwynedd  or  North  Wales  In  the 
seventh  century,  at  whose  court  Welsh  tradition  says  the  exiled  Edwin  of 
Northumbrla  was  brought  up,  is  at  the  Anglesey  church  of  Llangadwaladr. 
The  inscription  says:  "Catamanus  rex  sapientissimus  opinatissimus  omnium 
regum." 

2  "Pilii  autem  Liethan  in  regione  Demetorum  et  in  allis  regionibus  id  est 
Ouir  (et)  Cetgueli"   (Hist.  Britt.  c.  14). 

173 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

Culinan,  in  his  ninth  century  Glossary  also  places  a  "Dind 
map  Letani"  among  the  Cornish  Britons/ 

It  has  been  shown  that  from  270  A.  D.  onward  there 
were  many  expeditions  from  Ireland  directed  against 
the  Britons.  The  suggestion  that  such  evidences  of  the 
Gael  as  exist  in  south  Britain  might  be  derived  from  the 
Irish  wave  that  is  supposed  to  have  preceded  the  arrival 
of  the  Britons  in  the  island  appears  to  have  been  dis- 
proved. "Whether  we  take  history  for  our  guide  or 
native  tradition  or  philology,  we  are  led  to  no  other 
conclusion  than  this:  that  no  Gael  ever  set  foot  on  British 
soil  save  from  a  vessel  that  had  put  out  from  Ireland."^ 
The  eighth  century  tale  of  Indarba  mna  n  Dese  tells 
how  the  Desii,^  a  powerful  Irish  family,  having  been 
defeated  by  the  high  king,  Cormac,  mac  Art  (226-266 
A.  D.),  left  their  old  holdings  in  Deece,  near  Tara,  and, 
dividing,  went  part  to  Decies  in  Munster,  which  still 
bears  their  name,  and  part  under  the  leadership  of 
Eochaid,  son  of  Artchorp,  to  Dyfed  or  (south  Wales) 
and  remained  there  permanently.  These  Irish  invaders 
appear  to  have  displaced  or  conquered  the  native  Silures, 
of  whom  the  famous  Caractacus,  made  prisoner  by  the 
Romans,  had  been  king.  In  the  eighth  century  Tewdor 
ap  Rhain,  king  of  south  Wales,  was  claimed  by  the  Deisi 
of  Munster  as  a  descendant  of  one  of  their  ruling  chief- 
tains, Eochaid  Allmuir,  whose  second  appellation  points 
him  out  as  one  who  had  sought  his  fortunes  across  the 
sea. 

1  S.  V.  Muffeime. 

2  Irish  tale,  ed.  by  Kuno  Meyer  for  Vol.  XIV  of  the  Cymmrodor. 

3  The  Welsh  form  of  the  pedigree  is  to  be  found  in  Harl.  MS.  3859  (CyTnmr. 
IX,  171)  and  Jesus  CoUeg-e  (Oxford)  MS.  20  (Cymmr.  VIII,  86), 


174 


CHAPTER  XIV 
IRISH  CHRISTIANITY  IN  WALES 

I.  Power  of  the  Gael  in  Britain.  2.  Wales  Less  Enduringly  Irish  than 
Scotland.  3.  Irish  Foundations  in  Wales.  4.  Irish  Intellectual  In- 
tercourse with  Britain.  5.  Ireland's  Imperial  Status  and  the  Council 
of  Constance, 

I.   Power  of  the  Gael  in  Britain 

IRISH  noblemen  and  their  families  often  owned  two 
territories  or  estates,  one  in  Ireland  and  the  other  in 
west  Britain,  visiting  and  living  in  each  by  turns. 
The  heads  of  Irish  clans  often  crossed  over  to  receive  the 
tributes  due  to  them  from  their  British  possessions.  This 
is  made  clear  from  the  ancient  work  of  Cormac,  son  of 
Culinan,  already  referred  to,  from  which  it  appears  that 
so  extensive  were  the  settlements  of  the  Gael  in  Britain 
that  the  Irish  territory  beyond  the  channel  was  almost 
equal  in  extent  to  Ireland  itself,  and  Irish  princes  par- 
celed out  the  land  of  Britain,  taking  each  one  his  share, 
building  up  strong  forts  and  noble  habitations,  so  that 
not  less  did  the  Irishman  dwell  on  the  east  coasts  of  the 
sea  than  in  Ireland.  This  record,  overlooked  by  most 
historians  and  absolutely  unknown,  like  most  Irish  rec- 
ords, to  the  average  English  historian,  is  referred  to  by 
O'Donovan  as  "one  of  the  most  curious  and  important" 
preserved  relating  to  early  Irish  and  British  history.^  It 
was  after  visiting  his  family  and  friends  in  their  estates 
in  Wales  that  Cairbre  Muse,  son  of  Conaire,  brought  the 
first  lap-dog  into  Ireland,  it  would  seem  from  the  same 

1  Battle  of  Magh  Rath,  Pub.  I.  A.  S.,  339. 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

record.  fThe  passage  from  Cormac's  Glossary  is  so  valua- 
ble and  so  little  known  that  it  is  here  given  as  it  stands: 

"Mug  Eime — that  is  the  name  of  the  first  lap-dog  that 
w^as  in  Eire.  Cairbre  Muse,  the  son  of  Conaire,  brought 
it  from  the  east  from  Britain;  for  then  great  was  the 
power  of  the  Gaels  in  Britain,  they  divided  Alba  between 
them  into  districts  and  each  knew  the  residence  of  his  friends, 
and  not  less  did  the  Gael  dwell  on  the  east  side  of  the  sea  than 
in  Scotia  (i.  e.,  Erie,  or  Ireland),  and  their  habitations 
and  royal  forts  were  built  there.  There  is  (a  fort)  called 
Dun  Tradui,  i.  e.,  triple  fossed  fort  of  Crimhthann,  the 
great  son  of  Fidach,  King  of  Eire  and  Alba,  to  the  Ichtian 
Sea,  and  there  is  Glastonbury  of  the  Gael,  i.  e.,  a  church 
on  the  border  of  the  Ichtian  Sea,  and  it  is  on  that  part 
is  Dinn  map  Laethain,  in  the  lands  of  the  Cornish  Britons, 
i.  e.,  the  Fort  of  Mac  Leithan,  for  mac  is  the  same  as 
map  in  the  British.  Thus  every  tribe  divided  on  that 
side,  for  its  property  on  the  east  was  equal  to  that  of  the 
west,  and  they  continued  in  this  province  till  long  after 
the  coming  of  Patrick."^  "Alba"  here  applies  to  southern 
Britain,  tho  more  frequently  applied  to  northern  Britain. 
Both  are  called  the  land  of  the  "Albiones"  by  Avienus.'' 
Bede  is  also  circumstantial  about  the  power  of  the  Irish 
in  Britain. 

In  various  parts  of  Wales  the  word  Gwyddel,  mean- 
ing Gael,  or  Irishman,  enters  into  the  composition  of  local 
names.  Dr.  Jones,  in  the  work  already  referred  to,  enu- 
merates twenty-five  instances;  and  there  are  numerous 
references  to  the  Gael  in  the  traditions  of  the  Cymri,  who 
claimed  to  be  the  earliest  inhabitants  of  the  country.  They 

»  Sanas  Chormaic,  i.  e.,  Cormac's  Glossary,  ninth  cent.,  edit,  by  Stokes  for 
I.  A.  S.  1868,  p.  110. 

2  Holder,  Sprachschatz,  sub  voce,  Albion. 

176 


Irish  Christianity  in  Wales 


complain  of  invasions  of  their  territory  time  and  again 
by  the  Gaels  from  Eire.^ 

The  ancient  Irish  work,  Leabhar  na  g-Ceart,  or  Book 
of  Rights,  has  numerous  entries  attesting  the  existence 
of  considerable  commerce  and  intercourse  between  Brit- 
ain and  Ireland.  We  are  told  that  under  the  pagan  Irish 
kings  300  vessels  traded  with  Britain.  Welsh  merchants 
returned  from  Dairius,  an  island  in  Wexford  Haven,  to 
St.  David's ;  and  Welsh  harbors,  like  Porthmawr,  are  men- 
tioned as  points  of  departure  for  Ireland.  Irish  princes 
made  frequent  matrimonial  alliances  with  families  of 
equal  station  in  west  Britain.  The  superior  wealth  and 
influence  of  Ireland  are  shown  in  the  constant  mention, 
particularly  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries,  of  Britons, 
both  male  and  female,  living  as  slaves  in  Ireland.  Thus 
we  read  of  St.  Ailbe  (d.  541)  that  he  was  given  in  fos- 
terage to  certain  Britons  who  were  in  servitude  in  Ireland, 
in  the  east  of  Munster.  All  this  gravitates  in  the  direction 
of  proving  that  Wales  was  then  a  vassal  state  in  respect 
to  Ireland.  Monks  passed  to  and  fro  between  Ireland 
and  west  Britain,  residing  on  both  sides  of  the  sea.  To 
a  British  monk,  working  as  a  cartwright  in  an  Irish 
monastery,  S.  Fintan  tells  the  story  of  his  visit  to  the  Land 
of  Promise.  British  princes  fighting  the  Angles  and 
Saxons  found  not  only  food  and  shelter  but  also  soldiers 
and  ships  in  Ireland. 

Thus  the  Irish,  who  had  subdued  the  war-like  Picts  of 
north  Britain,  not  only  established  their  authority  over 
the  people  of  south  Britain  "Even  to  the  Ictian  Sea" 
(English  Channel),  as  Cormac  tells  us,  but  may  be  con- 
sidered the  chief  agency  in  the  expulsion  of  the  Romans 
themselves  from  Britain.     Numerous  places  in  Britain 

1  Book  of  the  West  Cornwall,  by  S.  Baring  Gould,  also  Devon,  by  same 
author   (1899). 

^77 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

are  still  called  after  the  Irishmen  who  formerly  occupied 
them,  as  in  the  case  of  Holyhead,  of  which  the  Welsh 
appellation  is  Cerrig  y  Gwyddell,  meaning  "Rocks 
of  the  Gaels."  "Irish  Road"  was  the  name  applied 
to  Watling  Street,  the  Roman  highway  running 
from  Richborough  in  Kent  to  Holyhead.  The  Irish, 
wherever  they  settled  in  Britain,  built  for  their  families 
circular  raths  and  forts.  Many  remain,  particularly  in 
Anglesea,  and  are  called  Cyttie  r'Gwyddelod,  or  the 
"Dwellings  of  Irishmen." 

The  present  spoken  Welsh  language  contains  a  number 
of  Irish  words,  relics  of  the  former  Irish  domination,  as 
the  numerous  Latin  words  in  Welsh  speak  of  the  still 
earlier  Roman  conquest.^  Investigation  has  likewise  re- 
vealed that  early  Welsh  legends  originated  in  Ireland. 
Thus  the  story  of  the  flooding  which  caused  the  Lake  of 
Glasfrya  Uchaf  is  modeled  on  the  more  celebrated  Irish 
account  of  the  forming  of  Lough  Neagh.^ 

2.  Wales  Less  Enduringly  Irish  than  Scotland 

We  cannot  quite  tell  at  what  period  the  Irish  hold  over 
Wales  ceased.  At  the  beginning  of  the  seventh  century 
the  Saxon  Chronicle  tells  us  that  Irish  in  Britain  con- 
tended with  Ceolwulf,  king  of  the  West  Saxon.  The 
passing  of  Irish  rule  must  have  been  gradual,  and  there 
are  evidences  of  it  even  in  the  eighth  century.  An  Irish 
bishop  of  Britain,  Sedulius,  signed  the  decree  of  the 
Roman  council  of  721,  where  he  is  put  down  as  "Epis- 
copus  Britanniae  de  genere  Scotus."    "Fergustus  episco- 

iRhys.  Revue  Celtique,  XVII,  102. 

2  The  earlier  portion  of  the  Annales  Cambriae  (444-954  A.  D.)  seems  to  be 
derived  from  an  Irish  chronicle  used  also  by  Tigernach  and  the  compiler  of 
the  Annils  of  Ulster.  During  its  first  century  it  contains  hardly  anything" 
relating  to  Britain.  Its  first  reference  to  English  history  is  in  relation  to 
the  mission  of  St.  Augustine. 

178 


Irish  Christianity  in  Wales 


pus  Scotiae  Pictus"  is  also  mentioned.  If  any 
considerable  area  remained  at  that  time  Irish  it  had 
remained  such  for  over  four  centuries. 

Wales  had  an  Irish  ruler  as  late  as  1080.  He  was 
Grufifyd,  the  son  of  Cynan,  or  Caionain,  or  assuming  the 
name  was  actually  a  surname,  for  surnames  were  then  being 
established  in  Ireland,  he  is  in  Irish,  Grufifyd  Mac 
Caionian,  and  in  Welsh,  Grufifyd  ap  Cynan.  He  is  so  pre- 
sented in  the  annals,  and  is  styled  King  of  Gwynedd  or 
north  Wales  by  right  of  inheritance.  He  left,  among 
other  donations,  "a  gift  of  twenty  shillings  to  Dublin,  that 
city  being  his  native  place,"  and  like  gifts  to  other 
churches  in  Ireland. 

The  international  connections  of  Irish  schoolmen  are 
indicated  in  the  case  of  Gildas  (not  to  be  confounded  with 
the  earlier  historian  of  the  Britons),  who  was  born  in  820 
in  Wales,  "Whose  parents  were  Irish,"  and  who  went  to 
get  his  education  in  Ireland.  He  blossomed  out  as  an 
author  and  one  of  his  works  is  dedicated  to  Rhabanus 
Maurus  of  Fulda,  who  had  studied  under  Alcuin  at 
Tours.^ 

Briton  and  Gael  were  often  confounded.  Pelagius,  to 
give  a  well  known  instance,  is  described  both  as  a  Briton 
and  an  Irishman.  Mochta,  described  as  disciple  of  St.  Pat- 
rick and  as  a  Briton,  studied  in  Rome.  Being  taunted  in 
the  city  about  Pelagius,  he  replied:  "If  for  the  fault  of 
one  man  the  inhabitants  of  a  whole  province  are  to  be 
banned  let  ...  .  Rome  be  condemned,  from  which  not 
one  but  two,  three  or  even  more  heresies  have  started." 

iThe  earlier  Gildas,  who  wrote  the  Epistola,  had  many  Irish  connections 
and  lived  part  of  his  life  In  Ireland.  He  is  said  by  some  authorities  to  have 
had  an  Irish  mother,  and  was  at  Armagh,  both  as  student  and  professor. 
Irish  schoolmen  visited  him  in  Wales.  St.  Cadroc,  who  is  a  distinguished 
figure  in  "Welsh  history  and  legend,  is  described  by  Colgan  as  an  Irish  Scot, 
in  other  words  as  an  Irishman  born  in  Ireland.  Mabillon,  the  BoUandists,  and 
Lanigan  judge  him  to  have  been  a  British  Scot,  that  is,  an  Irishman  born  in 
Britain. 

179 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of  Britain 

How  it  came  about  that  Caledonia,  or  Alba,  or  North 
Britain  or  Scotland,  as  it  is  variously  called,  remained  an 
Irish-speaking  country  while  west  Britain  became  first 
Irish-speaking  and  then  Welsh-speaking  is  a  question  that 
cannot  be  fully  answered.  Scotland  was  of  course  easier 
of  access,  and  intercourse  between  Ireland  and  its  north- 
ernmost province  was  regularly  maintained.  A  broad 
and  turbulent  sea  on  the  other  hand  divided  Ireland  from 
southern  Britain.  This  made  it  less  easy  for  the  Irish 
colonists  in  Wales  and  the  southern  peninsula  to  bring 
their  families  with  them,  and  the  settlement  was  as  a 
result  of  a  more  military  character/  The  proximity  of 
the  Romans  and  later  of  the  Saxons  would  in  any  case 
have  made  it  such.  In  this  case,  therefore,  the  rule,  main- 
tained by  certain  historians,  that  invaders  eventually  inter- 
marry with,  and  adopt  the  language  of,  a  conquered  peo- 
ple when  they  do  not  bring  their  women  folk  with  them, 
would  appear  to  apply.  Doubtless  the  Irish  element  in 
west  Britain,  at  first  the  governing  race,  intermarried 
with  the  native  British,  and  in  that  manner  passed  from 
the  use  of  Gaelic  to  the  kindred  Cymric  tongue. 

The  determination  of  the  fact  that  west  Britain  was  for 
centuries  Irish  ground  has  a  direct  bearing  on  the  con- 
troversies that  have  from  time  to  time  arisen  regarding 
the  provenance  and  nativity  of  such  men  as  Pelagius, 
Sedulius,  Boniface  and  others,  who  have  been  called  Irish, 
but  who  have  also  been  said  to  have  been  born  in  Britain. 
Thus  Boniface  was  born  in  what  is  now  called  Devon- 
shire when  it  was  distinctively  Brito-Irish  territory  and 
many  years  before  it  fell  to  the  West  Saxons. 

1  When  Brandoff,  powerful  king  of  Leinster,  c.  597,  heard  that  Prince  Cum- 
Tnuscacgr  was  comingr  to  Leinster  on  "a  youthful  free  circuit"  he  did  not 
wait  to  receive  him  personally  and  said:  "Let  a  messenger  be  sent  to  them 
and  let  them  be  told  tliat  I  have  gone  into  Britain  to  levy  rent  and  tribute." 
— (Sllva  Gadelica,  408.) 

i8o 


Irish  Christianity  in  Wales 


3.   Irish  Foundations  in  Wales 

During  the  latter  part  of  the  Irish  occupation  that  part 
of  Britain  now  denominated  Wales  was  largely  Chris- 
tian. Christianity  had  been  gradually  diffused  amongst 
the  ancient  Britons  during  the  Roman  occupation  and 
with  the  accession  of  Constantine  was  introduced  into 
those  parts  of  Britannia  Secunda  already  colonized.  The 
efforts  of  Roman  priests  were  supplemented  during  the 
fifth,  sixth  and  seventh  centuries  by  the  devoted  labors 
of  Celtic  missionaries,  both  Irish  and  Cymric,  of  whom 
nearly  five  hundred  names  still  remain  on  record.  The 
incessant  intercommunication  of  the  Irish  and  Welsh  saints 
at  this  time  in  Britain,  joined  with  the  paucity  of  the  Welsh 
records,  make  it  difficult  to  tell  which  of  them  were  origi- 
nally Irish  and  which  Welsh.  To  the  period  succeeding 
the  fall  of  the  Roman  is  ascribed  the  foundation  of  many 
great  Celtic  monasteries  in  Wales. 

As  early  as  the  close  of  the  second  century  we  find 
Tertullian  declaring  that  "even  those  parts  of  the 
Britannic  islands  which  were  unapproached  by  the 
Romans  were  yet  subject  to  Christ."  This  may  be  pre- 
sumed to  refer  to  Ireland  and  west  Britain.  Chrysostom, 
writing  in  the  year  390,  provides  similar  testimony: 
"Altho  thou  shouldst  go  unto  the  ocean  and  those  Britannic 
islands  ....  thou  shouldst  hear  all  men  everywhere  dis- 
coursing matter  of  Scripture." 

The  Acts  of  the  Irish  S.  Fingar,  with  his  sister  Piala, 
tell  of  seven  hundred  and  seventy-seven  of  his  country- 
men— allowance  has  to  be  made  for  the  figures — ^who 
carried  the  faith  into  south  Britain  round  the  fifth  cen- 
tury. These  Acts  bear  testimony  to  the  prosperity  and 
progress  of  Ireland  and  speak  of  seven  princes,  possibly 

181 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

the  seven  sons  of  Amalgaidh,  king  of  Connaught,  who 
heard  the  apostle  Patrick  on  one  occasion,  but  who 
despised  him  for  the  lowliness  of  his  habit  and  address. 

Bangor-Iscoed  and  St.  David's  in  Wales,  as  well  as  the 
lesser  monasteries,  were  probably  as  much  Irish  founda- 
tions as  lona  or  Luxeuil.  Keating  distinctly  declares  that 
Bangor  in  Wales  was  founded  by  Comgall,  who 
founded  Bangor  in  Ulster:  "It  was  he  who  founded 
the  abbey  of  Bangor  in  the  aird  of  Ulster,  which 
was  the  mother  to  all  the  monasteries  of  Europe 
!(or  its  order),  and  who  erected  another  abbey  in 
England  beside  West  Chester,  which  is  called  Bangor."' 
Whether  founded  by  Comgall  or  not,  it  is  highly 
probable  that  Bangor  was  an  Irish  foundation.  It 
had,  as  Bede  notes,  seven  parts  or  churches,  like  several 
other  Irish  foundations.  Tho  the  name  of  Pelagius 
has  been  absurdly  connected  with  it,  we  know  that  Bangor 
really  dates  froim  the  sixth  century  when  Irishmen  were 
founding  monasteries  all  over  Ireland,  England  and  con- 
tinental Europe.  We  know  that  Irishmen  then  were  in 
complete  possession  of  Wales  and  we  know  that  there  was 
a  great  revival  in  Wales  at  that  epoch — "an  improve- 
ment in  their  religious  and  political  existence."  This  im- 
provement was  simply  a  widening  of  the  radius  of  the 
intellectual  movement  then  developing  in  Ireland,  that 
was  making  itself  felt  on  the  borders  of  Asia  and  Africa 
and  could  hardly  have  left  Wales  any  more  than  the  rest 
of  Britain  out  of  its  powerful  sweep. 

St.  David's  of  Menevia  (Lat.  Menapia),  no  less  than 
Bangor,  has  all  the  appearance  of  being  an  Irish  founda- 
tion. It  was  the  nearest  Welsh  seaport  to  Ireland  and  was 
much  frequented  by  Irish  travelers  on  their  way  to  and 

1  Dionbhrollao  (trans,  by  D.  Comyn,  Introduction  to  Gaelic  History). 

182 


Irish  Christianity  in  Wales 


from  the  Continent  and  south  England.  S.  David  (degui, 
Dewi)  is  held  to  have  had  an  Irish  mother  and  may 
indeed  have  been  w^holly  Irish.  The  monastery  named 
after  him  vs^as  established  on  land  given  by  an  Irish  noble 
in  Pembrokeshire  named  Baja,  "vocatus  Scottus,"  a  pagan 
and  a  druid.    He  was  bishop  of  the  Irish  colony  of  Deise. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  the  lives  of  the  Cambro-British 
saints,*  which  are  highly  mythical,  show  that  it  was  con- 
sidered the  correct  thing  for  a  British  saint  to  have  studied 
in  Ireland.^ 

Glastonbury,  the  only  monastery  prominent  both  under 
the  Britons  and  the  Saxons,  probably  owed  its  founda- 
tion and  certainly  owed  its  renewal  to  Irishmen.  We 
know  that  with  Malmesbury  it  formed  a  chief  channel 
by  which  Irish  influence  and  teaching  entered  Britain  in 
the  south  as  they  entered  across  the  borders  of  Cumbria 
and  Northumbria  in  the  north.  It  is  called  "Glastonbury 
of  the  Irish"  in  the  Leabhar  Breac,  or  Speckled  Book  of 
Dun  Doighre,  as  well  as  in  the  Martyrology  of  Marianus 
Ua  Gormain  and  in  the  Calendar  of  Cashel.  Cormac, 
son  of  Culinan,  likewise  in  his  remarkable  Glossary, 
denominates  it  "Glastonbury  of  the  Gael."  Both  Lynch 
in  his  "Cambrensis  Eversus"  and  Camden  in  his  "Bri- 
tannia" declare  that  Glastonbury  was  founded  by  Irish- 
men. Glastonbury,  now  joined  to  the  mainland,  was  once 
an  island  in  the  River  Brue,  or  Brent,  like  so  many  other 
Irish  foundations,  as,  for  example,  Hohenau,  Seckingen, 
Reichenau,  and  Rheinau,  all  islands  in  the  River  Rhine. 
The  foundation  and  town  did  not  fall  into  Saxon  hands 
till  710.  It  remained  then  no  less  a  favorite  resort  of  the 
Irish.     The  medieval  biographer  of  S.  Dunstan  writes 

1  Edited  by  Rees. 

2B.  g.,  St.  Cadoc  (Rees.  pp.  35,  36,  cf.  p.  59);  St.  Kebi,  ib.  pp.  184-6;  of 
Chronicle  of  the  Picts  and  Scots,  ed.  W.  P.  Skene,  pp.  112-113;  Plummer's 
Bede,  11,  196. 

183 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

that  "numbers  of  illustrious  Irishmen,  eminently  skilled 
in  sacred  and  liberal  learning,  came  into  England  and 
chose  Glastonbury  for  their  place  of  abode."^  Eventually 
Glastonbury  Abbey  covered  sixty  acres  and  is  said  to  have 
been  one  of  the  finest  in  the  world. 

The  old  Latin  name,  Glastonia,  appears  to  be  based  on 
the  Gaelic,  glas  donn,  brown  river,  and  inis  glais  duinn, 
island  of  the  brown  river.  On  this  island  at  an  early 
date  was  built  a  small  walled  church,  which  was  known 
as  the  "old  church,"  ecclesia  vetusta,  in  the  time  of 
Ina  of  Wessex  (resigned  728),  who  built  a  larger  church 
east  of  it  on  the  advice  of  Aldhelm.  That  the  vetusta 
ecclesia  was  the  church  of  St.  Patrick  is  shown  by  two 
charters.'  "I,  King  Ina,"  says  one  (c.  704  A.  D.) ,  "bestow 
this  freedom  on  the  monks,  who  in  the  church  of  the 
Blessed  Virgin  and  the  Blessed  Patrick,  serve  Almighty 
God  under  Abbot  Hemgislus,  in  the  ancient  town  called 
Glastingaea  and  place  this  worth  and  privilege  on  the 
altar."  This  charter  is  subscribed  by  Aldhelm.  Previously 
in  681  Baldred,  king  of  Mercia,  granted  to  Hemgislus, 
abbot  (of  Glaston),  as  an  addition  to  the  honored  church 
of  the  Blessed  Mary  and  St.  Patrick  (ecclesiae  beatae 
Mariae  et  Sancti  Patricii),  the  lands  of  Somerset.  In 
the  charter  of  725,  Ina  calls  the  old  church  "the  first  in 
Britain,"  but  the  name  of  St.  Patrick  is  omitted,  the 
Benedictine  having  apparently  by  that  time  displaced  the 
Irish  rule  as  it  did  almost  everywhere  on  the  Continent 
later.  The  lands  granted  and  confirmed  by  Ina  include 
a  parcel  called  "Boek  Ereie"  which  is  frequently  men- 
tioned afterwards  in  grants  or  otherwise  with  the  addi- 
tion "little  Hibernia"  (parva  Hibernia).  "Boek  Ereie" 
is  a  phonetic  rendering  of  the  Gaelic  words  "beg  Eriu," 

1  Osbern,  Vita  S.  Dunstani. 

2  Kemble,  "Codex  Diplomaticus." 

184 


Irish  Christianity  in  Wales 


little  Ireland,  and  there  was  also  a  famous  islet  of  that 
name  in  Wexford  Harbor — it  is  still  known  as  Begery. 
Johannes  Glastoniensis  (fl.  1400),  who  wrote  the  his- 
tory of  Glastonbury,  says  that  there  was  down  to  his  time 
an  ancient  chapel  in  honor  of  S.  Brigid  on  the  island  of 
Beag  Erin,  and  he  mentions  the  ornamentation  of  the  tomb 
of  St.  Patrick/  When  Cenwealh  in  658  captured  Glas- 
tonbury he  found  there  the  Hiberno-British  foundation 
which  since  the  overthrow  of  Ambresbury  had  been  a 
center  of  Hiberno-British  Christianity.  Dififerent  from 
Ambresbury,  it  was  not  destroyed,  for  Cenwealh  had 
lately  been  made  a  Christian  and  was  under  Irish  influ- 
ence. 

William  of  Malmesbury  has  a  great  deal  about  Glas- 
tonbury's Irish  associations,  and  quotes  a  charter  of  Edgar 
(959-975)  endowing  Glastonbury,  in  which  one  of  the 
parishes  is  called  "Beokery,  otherwise  little  Ireland." 
Of  the  displacement  of  Irish  monks  there,  Camden  says: 
"In  these  early  ages  men  of  exemplary  piety  devoted 
themselves  here  to  God,  especially  the  Irish,  who  were 
maintained  at  the  king's  expense  and  instructed  youth  in 
religion  and  liberal  sciences.  They  had  embraced  soli- 
tude to  apply  themselves  with  more  leisure  to  the  study 
of  the  Scriptures  and  by  a  severe  course  of  life  accustom 
themselves  to  bear  the  cross.  At  length  Dunstan,  a  man 
of  domineering  and  crafty  temperament,  by  underhand 
acts  and  flatteries,  wormed  himself  into  an  intimacy  with 
the  kings  and  introduced  in  their  stead  the  monks  of  a 
newer  order,  namely,  of  S.  Benedict."^ 

St.  Bees  Head  in  Cumberland  still  speaks  of  the  story 
of  Begha,  or  Bee,  an  accomplished  Irish  woman,  canon- 

1  Ua  Clerigh,  Ireland  to  the  Norman  Conquest. 

2  Britannia. 

18.S 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

ized  by  popular  veneration,  who  in  the  sixth  century 
established  there  a  convent  and  school.  The  promontory 
looks  across  the  sea  directly  towards  Mona  insula  Caesaris, 
the  Isle  of  Man,  which  was  to  remain  Irish  in  speech  and 
population  as  long  as  Scotland.  Begha's  foundation  stood 
in  the  midst  of  a  strong  Celtic  state,  both  Irish  and  British, 
that  firmly  held  back  the  northern  Angles  beyond  the 
Pennine  range.  In  its  mixed  population  the  Irish 
remained  the  ruling  element  and  formed  a  link  between 
their  brethren  to  the  north  in  Caledonia  and  to  the  south 
in  Britannia  Secunda.  A  common  danger  from  the 
English  fused  Irish  and  British  together  and  as  a  sign 
of  the  wearing  out  of  old  distinctions  they  took  the  name 
of  Cymry  (Comrades),  a  name  by  which  the  Welsh  are 
known  among  one  another,  and  which  is  also  preserved 
in  the  name  of  Cumbria,  or  Cumberland.  Cumbria 
formed  part  of  Strathclyde,  where  lake-dwellings  or  cran- 
nogs  after  the  Irish  model  have  been  discovered. 

4.  Irish  Intellectual  Intercourse  with  Britain 

In  the  early  days  of  Irish  Christianity  the  Irish  are 
usually  considered  to  have  turned  to  Wales  for  instruc- 
tion. Not  much  evidence  can  be  found  in  support  of 
this  view.  The  Britons  were  then  in  a  parlous  state. 
Greco-Roman  secular  knowledge  as  well  as  a  first  acquain- 
tance with  Christianity  had  passed  to  the  Irish  through 
Roman  Britain.  But  when  Britain  ceased  to  be  Roman 
the  Britons  had  all  they  could  do  to  preserve  existence 
in  the  face  of  the  foes  that  surrounded  them.  Neither 
as  soldiers  nor  as  politicians  or  churchmen  did  they  show 
initiative. 

It  was  not  until  the  sixth  century,  when  the  Irish  church 

186 


Irish  Christianity  in  Wales 


was  in  its  first  bloom  and  strength  and  was  just  beginning 
its  great  missionary  movement,  that  Wales  showed  signs 
of  awakening.  It  is  then  that  the  curtain  first  really  lifts 
on  Welsh  history — behind  that  all  is  gloom,  doubt  and 
surmise.  Finian  of  Clonard,  Brendan  of  Clonfert,  as  well 
as  other  Irishmen,  had  close  relations  with  Wales.  The 
British  revival  was  unquestionably  a  result  of  Irish  labor. 

The  British  or  Welsh  church  was  always  a  laggard  how- 
ever. Wales  did  not  conform  to  Roman  custom  on  the 
Easter  question  till  the  year  768,  a  hundred  and  thirty- 
nine  years  after  the  south  of  Ireland,  and  long  even  after 
lona.  Missionary  activity  abroad  it  hardly  knew.  "It 
is  remarkable  that  while  the  Scots  (Irish)  were  the  mis- 
sionaries par  excellence  of  nearly  all  Europe  north  ot 
the  Alps,  and  in  particular  of  all  Saxon  England  north 
of  the  Thames,"  remarks  one  authority,  "not  one  Cum- 
brian, Welsh,  or  Cornish  missionary  to  any  non-Celtic 
nation  is  ^mentioned  anywhere.  The  same  remark 
applies  to  the  Armorican  Britons."^  Strange  to  say,  not  a 
single  ancient  manuscript  of  any  part  of  the  Bible,  Latin 
or  Greek,  has  been  preserved  that  is  pronounced  to  be  the 
work  of  a  Welsh  school  of  copyists. 

From  the  testimony  afforded  in  the  treatises  of  Suadbar, 
the  Irishman,  on  the  art  of  cryptography  published  from 
the  text  of  a  Bamberg  manuscript,  there  lived  at  the  court 
of  King  Mermin  in  Wales  (d.  844)  an  Irish  scholar 
named  Dubtach,  who  later  on  may  have  been  identical 
with  the  Dubtach  figuring  in  the  Irish  literary  colonies 
of  Sedulius  Scotus  at  Lie'ge  and  Milan,  on  which  new 
light  has  in  recent  years  been  shed.  Dubtach  must  have 
felt  very  much  at  home  at  this  Welsh  court,  and  appar- 
ently had  assimilated  much  Welsh  national  feeling,  for 

1  Haddan  and  Stubbs,  i,  154,  Councils  and  Ecclesiastical  Documents. 

187 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

from  that  vantage-point  he  issued  a  challenge  to  some 
Irish  scholars  to  compete  with  him  for  the  palm  of  learn- 
ing. The  challenge  was  accepted  by  Suadbar  and  his 
friends  and  these  friends  were  named,  Caunchobrach, 
Fergus,  and  Dominnach,  all  scholars  of  the  famous  Colgu 
of  Clonmacnois,  master  of  many  Irish  scholars  well  known 
abroad.  The  problem  put  was  to  find  the  solution  of  some 
difficult  matter  in  cryptography  and  this  the  Irish  scholars 
succeeded  in  doing.  Both  the  names  of  Fergus  and  Colgu, 
as  well  as  that  of  Dubtach  occur  on  some  of  the  manu- 
scripts dating  back  to  the  circle  of  Sedulius.  This  Dub- 
tach, it  is  thought  by  Ludwig  Traube,  may  be  the  author 
of  the  Leyden  Priscian  of  the  year  838.^ 

Apart  from  the  evidences  of  Irish  occupation  in  the 
way  of  Ogham  pillars  and  inscriptions  found  in  the 
Cornish  peninsula,  including  Somerset,  which  remained 
part  of  the  Celtic  state  till  the  year  710,  when  the  Saxons 
under  Ina  gained  the  upper  hand,  the  local  nomenclature 
there  speaks  eloquently  of  the  missionary  and  colonizing 
Gaels  who  dwelt  in  the  region.  Thus  Buriana,  a  young 
Irish  noblewoman,  is  declared  to  have  given  her  name 
to  St.  Burian,  near  Land's  End.  Three  miles  to  the  south- 
west again  is  St.  Levan,  named,  it  is  said,  from  the  far- 
famed  St.  Livinus,  an  Irish  bishop  and  classical  poet,  who 
died  in  the  Low  Countries,  verses  by  whom  are  still  left 
to  us  written  in  excellent  Latin.     St.  Piran,  known  in 

1  Traube  is  also  of  opinion  that  Sedulius  Scotus,  who  was  the  chief  figure 
in  the  literary  colony  at  Li6ge  in  the  ninth  century,  and  who  knew  well  how 
to  play  the  courtier  and  to  cultivate  the  friendship  of  royal  personages, 
as  his  numerous  extant  Latin  compositions  show,  also  had  relations  with 
King  Ruadrl,  the  successor  of  Mermin.  The  name  Ruadri  occurs  on  the  St. 
Gall  Priscian,  which  was  one  of  the  manuscripts  belonging  to  the  circle  of 
Sedulius  at  Li&ge,  and  which  is  believed  to  have  been  brought  out  by  them 
from  Ireland,  where  it  was  probably  produced,  very  likely  at  Clonmacnois. 
(KI  Bay.  Akad.  Abhandl.,  1891,  O  Roma  Nobilis;  Zeitk.  f.  deutsches  Allthert. 
XIX,  147.)  It  is  of  course  certain  that  many  of  the  Irish  schoolmen  who 
became  famous  on  the  Continent  must  have  done  work  in  Wales  and  England, 
about  which  we  now  know  nothing. 

i88 


Irish  Christianity  in  Wales 


Ireland  as  Ciaran,  or  Kieran  of  Salgir — it  is  curious  that 
the  Irish  ''k"  or  hard  '*c"  always  becomes  "p"  in  Cymric — 
founded  a  church  at  Perran  Zabuloe  on  the  north  coast 
of  Cornwall ;  while  St.  Ives,  the  picturesque  port  oppo- 
site Falmouth,  receives  its  name  from  St.  la,  one  of  Piran's 
missionary  companions,  who  founded  both  the  church  and 
the  town.  Similarly  from  Petroc,  another  missionary 
Irishman,  who  labored  in  Cornwall,  is  said  to  be  derived 
the  name  of  Petrockstow,  or  Radstow.  The  close  simi- 
larity of  the  stone  crosses  of  Cornwall  to  those  of  Ireland 
is  a  further  interesting  illustration  of  the  intercourse 
between  the  two  and  an  evidence  of  the  Irish  settlement.* 
So  large  was  the  number  of  Irish  missionaries  in  Brittany 
from  Ireland  or  Cornwall  that  Berger  calls  Brittany 
"une  colonic  spirituelle  d'lrlande.'"  But  here  we  are  in  a 
region  of  doubt  and  will  pass  on. 

5.  Ireland's  Imperial  Status  and  the  Council  of 

Constance 

When  we  realize  that  the  Gaels  of  Ireland,  holding 
with  a  strong  hand  the  west  of  Britain  from  the  Solway 
Firth  to  the  Channel,  were  still  to  conquer  Scotland,  that 
Irish  navigators  were  traversing  the  seas  as  far  north  as 
Iceland  and  as  far  south  as  the  tropic  of  Cancer,  that 
while  Cormac  the  Navigator  was  exploring  the  islands 
of  the  north,  Brendan  the  Navigator  may  have  reached 
part  of  the  American  continent,  that  Irish  colonists  and 
monks  and  explorers  actually  took  possession  of  the  Heb- 
rides, the  Faroe  Islands,  the  Orkney  Islands,  and  Iceland, 
as  well  as  the  Azores  and  all  the  islands  between;  we 
seem  to  be  envisaging  the  spectacle  of  a  great  sea-divided 

1  Rimner,  "Ancient  Stone  Crosses  of  England."  pp.  10,  11. 

2  Histoire  de  la  Vulgate. 

189 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of  Britain 

empire  in  the  making.  Ireland  in  those  times  had  unques- 
tionably great  fleets  of  ships  and  was  possest  of  a  naval 
fighting  force  that  makes  more  easily  comprehensible 
Roman  hesitation  in  attempting  her  conquest.  When  in 
addition  to  this  immense  political  colonization  we  see 
her  moving  to  the  intellectual  conquest  of  Europe,  reach- 
ing out  as  far  east  as  the  valley  of  the  Dneiper  and  as  far 
south  as  Carthage^  and  Egypt,  we  realize  that  Scotia  and 
the  Scot  must  have  appeared  influential  figures  in  the  eyes 
of  medieval  Europe. 

The  center  of  a  pulsating  life  that  infused  the  civiliza- 
tion of  the  West  to  its  farthest  borders,  Ireland  was  also 
the  base  of  a  great  political  colonization  that  endured  for 
centuries  and  to  which  the  term  imperium  might  not 
unfittingly  be  applied.  The  great  place  that  Ireland  filled 
in  the  medieval  eye  made  the  idea  of  an  Irish  empire 
readily  acceptable  to  the  medieval  mind  and  we  find  the 
idea  adumbrated  in  the  records.  It  was  at  the  Council  of 
Constance,  however,  held  in  the  fifteenth  century  that  we 
find  indisputable  proof  of  the  hold  the  idea  maintained 
in  Europe. 

During  the  proceedings  of  the  council  it  was  solemnly 
and  unanimously  affirmed  that  Europe  had  contained  four 
empires,  or  great  divisions,  and  only  four — namely,  the 
Greek,  the  Roman,  the  Spanish,  and  the  Irish.  The 
discussion  on  the  subject  throws  light  on  the  international 
politics  of  the  period.  Becchetti,^  speaking  of  the  council, 
says  that  the  Cardinal  of  Cambrai  published  a  document 
in  November,  1416,  in  which  he  denied  the  right  of 
the  English  to  be  considered  as  a  nation,  or  anything  more 
than  a  German  province,  and  argued  that  it  was  in  the 

1  Here  apparently  in  659  the  Irish  Augustin  or  ^ngus  wrote  in  classic 
Latin  his  "De  Mirabilibus  Sacrae  Scripturae." 

zistoria  degli  ultimi  quattro  Secoli  della  Chiesa  (Vol.  Ill,  p.  99.) 

190 


Irish   Christianity   in  Wales 


interest  of  the  court  of  France  to  oppose  such  English 
pretensions.  This  document  excited  in  the  minds  of  the 
English  present  the  fiercest  resentment.  It  has  to  be 
remembered  that  at  that  time  khe  governing  class  of 
England  spoke  a  French  patois,  while  the  mass  of  the 
people  spoke  an  English  (or  as  it  would  have  been  called 
in  the  council,  a  German)  patois,  the  English  language 
at  that  time,  despite  Chaucer,  not  having  been  developed 
as  a  literary  vehicle,  most  English  writers  preferring 
Latin.  The  representatives  of  the  English  crown  at  the 
council,  themselves  probably  Francii,  or  Normans,  were 
eagerly  desirous  of  getting  from  the  entire  synod  a  decree 
in  their  favor,  while  the  French  wanted  to  have  the  ques- 
tion referred  to  the  sacred  college.  Cardinal  Alliaco 
based  an  argument  on  the  bull  of  Benedict  XII  (d.  1342), 
in  which  he  enumerates  the  provinces  subject  to  the 
Roman  pontificate.  He  divided  Europe  into  four  great 
nations  in  accordance  with  the  bull,  in  such  a  way  that 
several  tribes  and  nations  were  comprised  under  the  head 
of  Germany,  and  England  was  one  of  these.  "Finalmente 
si  rammentano  varie  divisioni,  nelle  quali  erano  gia  state 
partite  le  provincie  della  Europa:  cibe  nei  di  Roma,  di 
Constantinopoli,  d'Irlanda,  e  di  Spagna."  Thus  it  was 
decreed  that  Ireland  continued  to  remain  one  of  the  four 
great  imperial  divisions  of  Europe.  However,  as  in 
1416,  when  the  council  was  held,  the  sovereign  of  England 
claimed  also  to  be  "Lord"  of  Ireland,  by  virtue  of  the 
bull  granted  to  the  French  rulers  of  England  by  Adrian 
IV,  a  document  which  a  church  council  could  not  readily 
disregard,  a  way  was  seen  out  of  the  difficulty.  The  king 
of  England's  shadowy  claim  in  respect  to  Ireland,  one 
of  the  four  great  divisions  mentioned,  was  allowed,  the 
pretensions  of  France  to  the  precedency  of  England  was 

191 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of  Britain 

set  aside,  and  the  deliberations  of  the  council  went  on  in 
undisturbed  serenity.^ 

1  Archbishop  Ussher  has  the  following  in  regard  to  it:  "In  the  year  1417, 
when  the  legates  of  the  king  of  England  and  the  French  king's  ambassadors 
fell  at  variance  in  the  Council  of  Constance  for  precedency,  the  English 
orators,  among  other  arguments,  alleged  this  also  for  themselves — it  is  well 
known  that  the  whole  world  is  divided  into  three  parts — to  wit,  Asia,  Africa 
and  Europe.  Europe  is  divided  Into  four  kingdoms,  namely  the  Roman,  for 
the  first;  the  Constantinopolitan,  for  the  second;  the  third,  the  Kingdom  of 
Ireland,  which  is  now  translated  with  the  English;  and  the  fourth,  the  King- 
dom of  Spain.  Whereby  it  appeareth  that  the  king  of  England  and  his 
kingdom  are  the  more  eminent  ancient  kings  and  kingdoms  of  all  Europe, 
which  prerogative  the  kingdom  of  France  is  not  said  to  obtain.  And  this 
I  have  inserted  the  more  willingly  because  it  maketh  something  for  the 
honor  of  my  country  to  which,  I  confess,  I  am  very  much  devoted,  and  in 
the  printed  acts  of  the  Council  it  is  not  commonly  to  be  had."  (Relig.  Ant. 
Irish,  cap.  xi,  Works,  iv,  p.  370.)     See  Ulster  J.  of  Arch.,  O.  S.,  vii,  p.  306. 


192 


CHAPTER  XV 

RECLAIMING  THE  ENGLISH   TRIBES 

I.  English  Ignorance  of  Debt  Owed  to  Irishmen.  2.  Conversion  of 
English  Delayed  by  Neglect.  3.  Reputation  of  English  Aborigines 
among  Civilized  Peoples.    4.  Total  Helplessness  of  the  Barbarians. 

I.  English  Ignorance  of  Debt  Owed  to  Irishmen 

LYNCH  in  his  "Cambrensis  Eversus"^  remarks  with 
wonder  on  the  general  ignorance  in  England  con- 
cerning the  debt  that  country  owed  to  Irishmen, 
since  the  story  of  how  they  gave  Christianity  and  civiliza- 
tion to  the  English  is  so  plainly  told  in  Bede.  The  remark, 
made  in  the  seventeenth  century,  might  be  repeated  in 
the  twentieth.  It  is  certainly  a  matter  for  enduring  won- 
der that  with  the  pages  of  Bede  lying  before  their  eyes 
so  many  English  historians  should  have  been  tempted  to 
depict  ancient  Ireland  as  a  barbarian  land  in  comparison 
with  their  own.  Many  English  writers  indeed  have  not 
scrupled  to  go  further  and  with  bland  temerity  have 
endeavored  to  propagate  the  notion  that  it  was  the 
English  who  first  brought  civilization  to  Irishmen.  Of 
such  writers  the  legion  will  be  forgotten,  and  with  such 
as  are  remembered  posterity  and  the  facts  will  deal 
according  to  their  deserts.  Bede  was  the  first  as  he  has 
remained  the  decentest  of  English  historians.  Nearly  a 
thousand  years  were  to  pass  after  his  time  before  England 
was  able  to  produce  a  school  of  historians  writing  in  their 

1  Chapters  XVI,  XVII  and  XVIII  of  this  work,  first  published  in  Latin  in 
1662,  has  a  good  account  of  the  manner  in  which  the  Irish  missionaries 
converted  the  Eng-lish  natives.  The  worlc  was  republished  in  three  volumes 
with  a  translation  by  Matthew  Kelly  in  1848. 


14 


193 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 


own  English  tongue.  These  historians  showed  no  improve- 
ment over  Bede.  On  the  contrary  they  were  hopelessly 
his  inferiors  in  the  fundamental  virtues  of  the  historian. 
It  would  be  well  if  the  generality  of  English  writers 
would  study  the  spirit  and  the  method  of  the  earliest  of 
their  historians.  He  nevertheless  told  but  the  beginning 
of  the  story  of  what  Irishmen  did  for  the  English  in  the 
age  in  which  he  lived.  The  present  state  of  our  knowl- 
edge has  permitted  us  to  indicate  their  work  in  more 
extended  detail  with  material  drawn  from  sources  as 
authoritative  as  the  testimony  of  Bede  himself. 

Montalembert  cre'dits  the  Irish  missionaries  with  the 
chief  share  in  the  conversion  of  England:  "From  the 
cloisters  of  Lindisfarne  and  from  th'e  Heart  of  those  dis- 
tricts in  which  the  popularity  of  ascetic  pontiffs  such  as 
Aidan  and  martyr  kings  such  as  Oswald  and  Oswin  won 
day  by  day  a  Beeper  root,  Northumbrian  Christianity 
spread  over  the  southern  kingdoms What  is  dis- 
tinctly visible  is  the  influence  of  Celtic  priests  and  mis- 
sionaries everywhere  replacing  or  seconding  the  Roman 
missionaries  and  reaching  'districts  which  their  predeces- 
sors had  never  been  able  to  enter.  The  stream  of  the 
Divine  Word  thus  exfenHed  itself  from  north  to  south, 
and  its  slow  but  certain  course  reached  in  succession  all 
the  people  of  the  Heptarchy."*  Again  he  writes:  "Of 
the  eight  kingdoms  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  confederation, 
thai  of  Kent  alone  was  exclusively  won  and  retained  by 
the  Roman  monks,  whose  first  attempts  among  the  East 
Saxons  and  Northumbrians  ended  in  failure.  In  Wessex 
and  East  Anglia  the  Saxons  of  the  West  and  the  Angles 
of  the  East  were  converted  by  the  combined  action  of 
continental  missionaries  and  Celtic  monks.    As  to  the  two 

I  Monks  of  the  West,  IV,  88. 

194 


Reclaiming  the   English  Tribes 

Northumbrian  kingdoms  and  those  of  Essex  and  Mercia, 
which  comprehended  in  themselves  more  than  two  thirds 
of  the  territory  occupied  by  the  German  (Saxon)  conquer- 
ors, these  four  countries  owed  their  final  conversion  exclu- 
sively to  the  peaceful  invasion  of  the  Celtic  monks,  who  not 
only  rivaled  the  zeal  of  the  Roman  monks,  but  who, 
the  first  obstacles  once  surmounted,  showed  much  more 
perseverance  and  gained  much  more  success."^ 

"Augustine  was  the  apostle  of  Kent,  but  Aidan  was  the 
apostle  of  England,"  says  Bishop  Lightfoot.  Aidan  was 
but  one  of  an  army  of  devoted  Irishmen,  whose  unweary- 
ing effort  slowly  lifted  the  English  from  savagery  to 
civilization.  Very  remarkable  was  the  manner  in  which 
they  performed  their  work. 

2.  Conversion  of  English  Delayed  by  Neglect 

When  we  consider  the  energy  and  intrepidity  mani- 
fested by  the  Irish  monks  in  so  many  different  places 
through  the  long  period  of  their  apostolic  mission,  we 
are  confronted  by  their  singular  delay  in  organizing  the 
conversion  of  the  English.  The  Saxons,  Angles  and  Jutes 
began  to  arrive  in  England  previous  to  449  A.  D.  No 
organized  Irish  mission  appeared  among  them  till  635 
A.  D.  Thus  a  period  of  nearly  two  centuries  was  allowed 
to  elapse  before  the  Irish  sought  to  win  these  new  peoples 
to  Christianity.  What  were  the  reasons  underlying  this 
singular  delay?  No  explanation  can  be  afforded  by  sug- 
gestions as  to  the  inactivity  of  the  Irish  themselves.  [They 
were  indeed  far  from  inactive.  Some  of  the  greatest 
of  the  Irish  schools  had  by  635  A.  D.  more  than  a  century 
of  flourishing  life  behind  them.  Columcille  had  been 
almost  forty  years  in  his  grave,  his  laborious  and  fruitful 

ilbid.   IV.  125. 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

life  a  golden  memory  to  his  disciples,  who  with  him  had 
been  laboring  among  the  Picts  for  the  greater  part  of  a 
century.  Columbanus  and  most  of  his  associates  too  were 
dead  after  prolonged  labor  in  France  and  the  border- 
lands, and  a  hundred  years  before  Columbanus  there  had 
been  Irish  priests  and  bishops  in  Gaul  and  Italy.  In  the 
year  620  A.  D.  there  were  Irish  missionaries  In  Bavaria 
and  Helvetia.  But  they  passed  the  English  tribes  by. 
What  was  at  the  bottom  of  this  seeming  dereliction  of 
duty? 

In  this  attitude  of  aloofness  the  Irish  were  not  alone. 
Gaulish  missionaries,  whose  negligence  Pope  Gregory 
later  rebuked,  showed  great  reluctance  in  respect  to 
preaching  to  the  invaders  of  Britain,  for  in  a  letter  of 
introduction  which  Augustine  brought  from  Gregory  to 
Queen  Brunhilda  at  Orleans  we  gather  that  applications 
from  the  English  for  help  and  conversion  had  been  made 
in  vain  to  neighboring  priests.* 

"We  are  informed,"  wrote  the  Pope,  "that  they  long- 
ingly wish  to  be  converted,  but  the  bishops  and  the  priests 
of  the  neighboring  region  (France)  neglect  them."  The 
appeals  of  the  English  were  probably  prompted  by  the 
presence  of  Bishop  Luidhard,  soul  friend  to  Bertha,  a 
Christian  Gaulish  princess  who  had  married  Ethelbert, 
king  of  Kent.  Bertha  was  the  daughter  of  Caribert,  king 
of  Paris,  granddaughter  of  Brunhilda,  the  great  enemy 
of  Columbanus,  and  great-granddaughter  of  Clotilde, 
wife  of  Clovis. 

Going  still  further,  the  clerics  of  the  church  of  the 
Britons  refused  absolutely  to  have  any  hand  in  the  con- 
version of  the  English,  looking  on  them  as  being  more 
worthy  of  eternal  reprobation  than  of  the  joys  of  heaven. 

lEpist.  VI,  59.     MigTie,  Pat.  Lat.  LXXVII,  col.  842  seq. 

196 


Reclaiming  the   English  Tribes 

But  their  hatred  is  comprehensible.  Despoiled  and  dis- 
placed by  the  newcomers  the  memory  of  the  wrongs  they 
had  suffered  was  still  green.  The  Irish  element  in  west- 
ern Britain  doubtless  shared  this  sentiment  of  repulsion. 
But  the  inactivity  of  the  Irish  in  Ireland  is  less  easily 
comprehensible. 

The  antipathy  of  the  Britons  for  the  English  invader 
was  implacable,  and  it  endured  even  after  the  English 
had  become  Christians.  Bede  sorrowfully  remarks 
respecting  the  intransigeance  of  the  ancient  Britons: 
''Among  other  most  wicked  actions,  not  to  be  exprest, 
which  their  own  historian  Gildas,  mournfully  takes  notice 
of,  they  added  this — that  they  never  preached  the  faith  to 
the  Saxons  or  English  who  dwelt  amongst  them."* 

A  letter  of  Aldhelm  to  a  ruler  of  Cornwall  bears  strik- 
ing witness  to  the  feeling  which  the  dispossest  Britons 
continued  to  cherish  towards  the  English  tribes.  "Beyond 
the  mouth  of  the  Severn,"  he  writes,  "the  priests  of  Cam- 
bria, proud  of  the  purity  of  their  morals,  have  such  a 
horror  of  communication  with  us  that  they  refuse  to  pray 
with  us  in  the  churches,  or  to  seat  themselves  at  the  same 
table.  More  than  this,  what  is  left  of  our  meals  is  thrown 
to  dogs  and  swine,  the  dishes  and  bottles  we  have  used 
have  to  be  rubbed  with  sand  or  purified  by  fire  before 
they  will  condescend  to  touch  them.  The  British  neither 
give  us  the  salutation  nor  the  kiss  of  peace,  and  if  one 
of  us  went  to  live  in  their  country  the  natives  would  hold 
no  communication  with  him  until  after  he  had  been  made 
to  endure  a  penance  of  forty  days."^ 

Bede  tells  us  further  that  to  his  day  it  was  "the  custom 
of  the  Britons  not  to  pay  any  respect  to  the  faith  and 

1  Historia  Ecclesiastica,  Bk.  I,  Ch.  XXII. 

2  Epistola  1.  Adhelmi  ad  Geruntium,  Migne,  Pat  I/at.  LXXXIX,  col.  87. 
It  was  originally  found  among  the  letters  of  Boniface. 

197 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

religion  of  the  English,  nor  to  correspond  with  them  any- 
more than  with  Pagans."^ 

The  English  reciprocated  the  antipathy  of  the  Britons. 
Thus  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  legend  of  St.  Guthlac"  we  find 
a  curious  assertion  that  St.  Guthlac,  having  been  among 
the  British,  understood  the  speech  of  the  devils,  who  used 
that  language. 

3.  Reputation  of  English  Aborigines  Among  Civi- 
lized Peoples 

To  this  sentiment  of  irreconcilability  is  it  due  that  of 
all  the  barbarian  races  that  descended  upon  the  Roman 
provinces  the  Anglo-Jute-Saxons  alone  found  civilization 
bodily  withdrawing  as  they  advanced.  In  other  countries 
religion,  administrative  order  and  the  appurtenances  of 
learning  were  gradually  assumed  and  assimilated  by  the 
newcomers.  Britain  was  almost  the  only  province  of  the 
empire  where  Roman  civilization  disappeared  with  the 
people  who  enshrined  and  administered  it.  The  antipathy 
excited  in  the  breast  of  the  Romanized  Briton  became 
an  insuperable  barrier  to  the  blending  or  association  of 
races,  and  receding  towards  Britannia  Secunda  and 
Strathclyde  before  the  violence  of  the  new  settlers  they 
carried  their  whole  organization  of  government  and 
society  with  them.  Thus  the  Anglo-Jute-Saxon  invader 
was  condemned  to  remain  as  much  the  primeval  savage 
amid  the  noble  monuments  of  Roman  refinement  and 
power  as  on  the  wastes  of  Sleswick  or  Jutland. 

To  this  primitive  people,  capable  only  of  such  ratiocina- 
tion as  was  needed  to  maintain  a  purely  animal  existence, 

iHlst.  Eccl. 

2  Contained  in  the  Codex  Exoniensis  or  Exeter  Book,  a  collection  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  poems  given  by  Bishop  Leofric  to  the  library  of  the  cathedral  of 
Exeter,  between  1046  and  1073,  and  published  by  the  London  Society  of  Anti- 
quarians in  1842.  The  legend  concerning  Guthlac  (c,  673-714)  is  a  metrical 
paraphrase  of  the  Latin  life  by  Felix,  a  monk  of  Croyland  Abbey. 

198 


Reclaiming  the   English  Tribes 

Rome  was  the  first  to  send  light  and  teaching,  for  tho 
the  Irish  Columbanus  and  Dicuil  with  companions  are 
said  to  have  been  in  East  Anglia  before  they  were  in 
Gaul,  there  is  little  evidence  of  any  work  accomplished 
there  by  them.*  Thus  it  came  about  that  Augustine  and 
his  associates  appeared  in  Kent  thirty-eight  years  before 
the  Irish  missionaries  left  lona  for  Northumberland.  But 
again  in  the  case  of  the  Roman  missionaries  we  have  evi- 
dence of  the  dread  and  repugnance  felt  in  relation  to  the 
English  barbarians.  Augustine  and  his  company  had  set 
out  from  Rome  in  June,  596;  but  the  more  these  repre- 
sentatives of  Roman  civilization  neared  their  destination 
the  more  pronounced  became  their  distaste  for  the  enter- 
prise in  hand.  At  each  stopping  place  accounts  reached 
them  concerning  the  uncouth  islanders  sufficient  to  deter 
the  stoutest  hearts.  The  Saxons  were  more  ferocious 
than  wild  beasts,  it  was  said;  they  preferred  cruelties 
to  feasting;  they  thirsted  for  innocent  blood;  they  held 
in  abhorrence  the  Christian  name;  and  torture  and  death 
were  sure  to  await  the  emissaries  of  civilization.  At 
Aries,  or  Aix-en-Provence,  the  missionaries,  says  Bede, 
"were  seized  with  a  sudden  fear  and  began  to  think  of 
returning  home,  rather  than  proceed  to  a  barbarous,  fierce 
and  unbelieving  nation  to  whose  very  speech  they  were 
strangers,"^  finally  deputizing  Augustine  to  acquaint  Pope 
Gregory  with  the  facts  as  they  had  learned  them.  Augus- 
tine went  back  to  Rome  and  saw  the  Pope,  while  his 
companions  awaited  the  new  word  of  command.  That 
word,  carried  back  by  Augustine,  was  to  go  forward  on 
their  journey — in  the  words  of  the  pope,  the  greater  the 

1  Jonas,  the  biographer  of  Columbanus,  is  the  chief  authority  for  this 
sojourn  in  England.  They  appear  to  have  "found  the  hearts  of  the  people 
In  darkness,"  and  despairing  of  "sowing  the  seeds  of  salvation,"  went  to 
the  "nearest  nations"  (Migne,  Pat.  Lat.,  v.  87,  col.  1016). 

2  Hist.  Eccl.,  Book  I.  Ch.  XXXII. 

199 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

suffering  the  greater  would  be  their  reward.  So  Paris 
was  reached  and  there  the  winter  months  were  passed; 
and  finally,  after  a  creeping  journey  that  lasted  almost  a 
year,  in  the  spring  of  597  Augustine  arrived  at  Thanet 
and  came  face  to  face  with  the  islanders. 

What  we  know  of  the  Angles  and  Saxons  at  this  period 
is  derived  from  foreign  sources  and  is  expressive  chiefly 
of  the  vague  apprehension  and  distrust  naturally  felt  by 
the  civilized  person  towards  the  remote  and  little  known 
savage.  Their  occupation  is  represented  as  that  of  pirates, 
whom  no  storm  could  affright  in  the  pursuit  of  their  prey. 
They  slew  their  captives,  as  Freeman  notes,  with  fearful 
tortures.  A  contemporary  Gallic  bishop,  Sidonius  Apol- 
linaris,  describes  them  as  brigands,  "the  most  turbulent 
of  enemies,"  who  made  it  a  point  not  only  of  honor  but  of 
religion  "to  torture  their  captives  rather  than  put  them 
to  ransom,"  while  they  sacrificed  the  tenth  part  of  them 
to  their  gods.*  Other  Roman  writers  refer  to  them  in 
similar  vein,  while  Irish  writers  and  speakers  of  the  period 
habitually  allude  to  them  simply  as  "barbarians,"  "sav- 
ages" and  "marauders."^ 

What  went  on  after  the  settlement  of  the  Saxons,  Angles 
and  Jutes  in  Britain  we  do  not  know.  Cut  off  almost  abso- 
lutely from  the  civilized  world,  of  the  very  existence  of 
which  they  could  know  but  little,  and  utterly  unable  to 
make  a  record  of  any  kind,  their  history  remains  a  total 
blank  for  almost  two  centuries.  Bede,  for  example,  has 
no  word  on  this  period.  The  glories  of  Roman  art  and 
culture  rose  up  around  them,  they  may  even  have  learnt 
to  use  Roman  ruins  as  their  dwellings,  but  tho  they  jnust 
have  wondered  they  were  unable  to  derive  further  profit 
from  them.    Alternating  their  wars  with  the  Britons  by 

lEpist.  VIII,  6. 
SAdamnan,  Vita  S.  Col. 

200 


Reclaiming  the   English  Tribes 


savage  and  exterminating  assaults  on  each  other,  their 
lives  appear  to  have  been  a  hopeless  round  of  fighting 
and  feasting.  At  this  period  the  Welsh  Triads  accuse 
them  of  being  addicted  to  the  eating  of  human  flesh. 
Ethelfrith,  it  is  said,  encouraged  cannibalism  at  his  court, 
and  Georgi,  a  truant  Briton  there,  is  said  to  have  become 
so  enamored  of  human  flesh  that  he  could  eat  no  other. 
They  had  also  formed  the  unnatural  habit  of  selling  their 
children  into  slavery.  The  traflic  in  English  slaves  con- 
tinued for  many  centuries  and  the  incorrigible  practise 
was  so  deeply  rooted  that  even  Christianity  could  not 
eradicate  it.  English  slavery  during  these  ages  had  repul- 
sive features  absent  even  from  negro  slavery  at  a  later 
date,  and  the  traffic  filled  Ireland  especially  with  a  large 
population  of  English  fudirs  and  slaves.^ 

In  facts  such  as  these  have  we  to  look  for  the  sources 
of  the  hesitation  manifested  by  missionaries  in  endeavor- 
ing to  carry  civilization  to  the  English  tribes.  The  mate- 
rial appeared  too  menacing  even  to  the  self-sacrificing 
devotion  of  the  missionary.  It  seems  probable  that  the 
suicidal  ferocity  of  the  invaders  tended  to  spend  itself  as 
they  became  settled  in  their  new  home.  But  their  occu- 
pation of  the  country  was  gradual,  and  its  progressive 
stages  remain  very  obscure. 

4.  Total  Helplessness  of  the  Barbarians 

The  pages  of  Adamnan  reveal  to  us  a  certain  English 
filtering  into  or  contact  )with  Irish  communities  even 
before  the  official  mission  of  Aidan.  There  were  Saxons 
among  the  servants  and  brethren  at  lona  in  the  time  of 
Colu/mcille.  One  of  them  named  Genere  worked  as  baker 
at  the  monastery;  another  was  named  Pilu.  Columcille 
is  said  to  have  caused  the  death  of  a  "certain  bad  frantic 

1  See  Appendix  A. 


201 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

man,"  a  Saxon,  who  smote  a  monk  of  his  household  and 
cut  his  girdle  with  a  spear.  Aidan,  the  Irish  king  in 
Scotland,  fought  the  English  and  defeated  them  at  Leth- 
redh,  c.  590,  losing  two  of  his  sons  and  three  hundred  men. 
Adamnan  tells  us  that  on  the  night  of  the  battle  Colum- 
cille  suddenly  said  to  his  minister  Diarmuid,  "Ring  the 
bell."  The  brethren  startled  by  the  sound  proceeded 
quickly  to  the  church  with  the  holy  prelate  himself  at 
their  head.  Then  he  began  on  bended  knees  to  say  to 
them:  "Let  us  pray  now  earnestly  to  the  Lord  for  this 
people  and  King  Aidan,  for  they  are  engaging  in  battle 
at  this  moment."  Then  after  a  short  time  he  went  out  to 
the  oratory  and  looking  up  to  heaven  said:  "The  bar- 
barians are  falling  now  and  to  Aidan  is  given  the  victory — 
a  sad  one  tho  it  be."^  On  another  occasion  a  reference 
to  "marauding  savages"  (barbari  bellatores)  indicates 
the  presence  of  English  in  the  neighborhood.^ 

A  century  after  the  reputed  landing  of  Hengist  and 
Horsa  had  to  pass  before  the  Angles  colonized  Northum- 
bria.  Spreading  westward  and  northward  the  English 
tribes  at  last  came  in  contact  with  the  Irish  Scots  of  Cale- 
donia, and  some  of  the  native  Anglian  rulers  fleeing  from 
fratricidal  strife  found  refuge  with  other  English  abo- 
rigines in  lona  and  Ireland.  So  Englishman  and  Irish- 
man began  to  meet  in  peaceful  intercourse,  the  one  the 
unredeemed  and  primeval  savage,  the  other  the  represen- 
tative of  an  immemorial  civilization  and  of  the  highest 
culture  and  purest  Christianity  of  his  age. 

Such  contact  with  civilization  was  necessary  if  the 
English  native  was  to  be  raised  from  his  secular  degrada- 

iFordun  (Scotichr.  iii,  29)  identifies  this  battle,  described  as  the  battle  of 
Miathi  in  Adamnan  (I,  viii),  with  the  battle  of  Wodenysburgh,  mentioned 
by  the  Saxon  Chronicle  at  591,  and  places  it  near  Chester.  Ussher  and  Chal- 
mers identify  it  with  the  battle  of  Lethrigh,  recorded  by  Tighnernach  in  591 
(Reeves'  Adamnan,  34). 

2Adamnan's  Vita  Columbae   (ed.,  Reeves)   I,  xxxv. 

202 


Reclaiming  the   English  Tribes 

tion.  He  himself  provided  conclusive  proof  that  of  him- 
self the  barbarian  could  do  nothing,  and  left  to  himself 
was  likely  to  remain  a  barbarian  to  the  end  of  time.  On 
this  very  point  some  illuminating  words  have  been 
uttered:  ''How  far  human  nature  is  capable  by  its  own 
efiforts  of  perfecting  and  developing  itself  we  need  not 
seek  far  for  an  example.  If  such  an  experiment  will 
satisfy  anyone,  that  experiment  was  tried  here  under  the 
most  favorable  conditions.  A  century  and  a  half  elapsed 
from  their  (our  Saxon  forefathers')  first  settlement  in  this 
island  before  the  first  sound  of  the  gospel  was  heard 
among  them.  What  is  the  result?  What  steps  have  they 
taken  on  the  roads  of  progress  and  improvement?  What 
advancement  in  letters;  what  dawnings  of  science;  what 
emancipation  from  the  ancient  paganism?  Have  they 
built  up  themselves?  Have  they  built  up  a  nation?  Is 
there  any  improvement  of  any  kind  whatsoever  at  the 
end  of  150  years  more  than  there  was  at  the  beginning? 
None,  rather  the  reverse.  Their  paganism  has  grown 
coarser,  deeper,  darker;  their  political  confusions  and 
convulsions  more  hopeless;  their  tendencies  more  savage 
and  restless;  their  culture  is  an  absolute  blank.  That 
any  nation  or  any  man  can  by  his  own  efforts  erect  'him- 
self above  himself,*  is  the  veriest  delusion  that  ever 
imposed  itself  on  the  brain  of  the  thoughtless  and  unwary. 
For  whatever  the  Anglo-Saxons  have  since  become  they 
are  indebted  to  an  influence  external  to  themselves.  Had 
it  not  been  for  Christianity  they  must  have  remained  for- 
ever in  this  ancient  barbarism,  making  no  improvement 
but  sinking  deeper  into  confusion  fro(m  age  to  age.  It 
brought  them  not  only  higher  hopes  but  literature,  arts 
and  science  in  its  train."^ 

1  Preface  to  Works  of  Glraldus  Cambrensis,   Rolls  Series,  IV,  edited  by 
J.  S.  Brewer. 

203 


CHAPTER  XVI 
ROMAN  AND  IRISH  MISSIONARIES  IN  ENGLAND 

I.  Mission  of  Augustine  a  Failure.  2.  Irish  Work  Beginning  of  En- 
glish Civilization.  3.  Aidan  among  the  English  Tribes.  4.  Irish 
Prelate  and  Anglian  King.  5.  English  Natives  and  Their  Rulers 
Sheltered  and  Educated  in  Ireland. 

I.   Mission  of  Augustine  a  Failure 

"%  TEVERTHELESS  it  was  not  the  Irishman  but  the 
^  Roman  who  was  to  be  the  first  to  attempt  to  carry 
Christianity  to  the  English.  It  is  very  much  to 
the  honor  of  the  great  Pope  Gregory  that,  burdened  as 
he  was  with  the  cares  of  a  world  in  travail,  he  should 
still  concern  himself  with  the  rescue  of  these  distant  bar- 
barians, before  any  of  their  neighbors  showed  disposition 
to  lend  a  helping  hand  to  them. 

What  the  Roman  missionaries  sent  by  him  accomplished 
is  a  story  that  has  been  often  told.  Ethelbert,  ruler  of  the 
Jutes  of  Kent,  was  well  disposed  towards  them,  for  he 
had  obtained  in  marriage  the  Christian  Frank  princess 
Bertha.  The  king  himself  submitted  to  baptism  on  Whit- 
sunday and  at  the  following  Christmas  Augustine  was 
able  to  cheer  Gregory  with  the  news  that  10,000  aborigines 
had  followed  the  example  of  their  king.  Evidently  the 
mass  of  them  remained  pagans  at  heart  for  when  the  fear 
of  Ethelbert  was  removed  by  his  death  in  6i6  Essex  and 
part  of  Kent  reverted  to  heathenism.  The  associates  and 
successors  of  Augustine,  who  died  probably  in  604,  en- 
deavored to  carry  on  and  extend  his  work.  They  had 
only    indififerent    success.      Lawrence    at    Canterbury, 

204 


Roman   and   Irish   Missionaries  in   England 

Mellitus  at  London,  Felix  in  East  Anglia,  Deacon  James 
in  Yorkshire,  Ruffinianus  at  the  infant  abbey  of  St.  Peter's, 
Canterbury,  worked  off  and  on  at  their  difficult  mission 
amid  a  population  largely  indifferent  to  their  ministra- 
tions. Their  sense  of  their  own  inadequacy  is  revealed 
by  anxious  and  ineffectual  appeals  for  help  to  their  Brito- 
Irish  coreligionists  in  western  Britain.  Paulinus  in  627 
traveled  northwards,  and  baptized  Eadwine  of  Northum- 
bria,  who  had  married  a  Kentish  Christian  princess,  and 
is  thought  to  have  founded  some  churches.  Six  years 
later,  following  the  victory  of  Penda  over  Eadwine,  a 
pagan  reaction  swept  everything  Christian  and  civilized 
away  and  the  natives  relapsed  once  more  into  total  sav- 
agery and  heathenism.  Eventually  all  the  associates  of 
Augustine,  except  Lawrence,  fled  the  country,  while  Law- 
rence prepared  to  flee  but  was  led  by  a  dream  to  hold  his 
ground. 

Such  conversion  as  the  Roman  missionaries  effected 
amongst  the  natives  was  skin  deep.*  When  Redwald, 
king  of  East  Anglia,  for  example,  was  ordered  by  his 
overlord,  Ethelbert,  to  become  Christian,  he  complied 
by  adding  an  image  of  Christ  as  a  god  to  his  heathen 
deities,  later  throwing  it  out  and  abandoning  even  the 
pretense  of  conversion. 

1  Differences  of  opinion  in  regard  to  Easter,  the  tonsure,  and  other  matters 
made  cooperation  between  the  Romans  and  the  Irish,  as  well  as  the  British, 
difficult.  This  is  made  clear  by  the  words  of  Lawrence  himself:  "To  our 
very  dear  Lords  and  Brothers,  the  Bishops  and  the  Abbots  in  all  lands  of 
the  Irish  (Per  universam  Scotiam),.  Laurentius,  Mellitus,  and  Justus,  ser- 
vants of  the  servants  of  God.  When  the  Apostolic  See,  according'  to  the 
custom  of  sending  missionaries  throughout  the  world,  sent  us  to  preach  the 
Gospel  to  the  pagans  of  the  West,  we  came  to  Britain  without  previous 
knowledge  of  the  inhabitants.  But  both  Britons  and  Irish  we  esteemed  highly 
for  their  sanctity  believing  that  they  conformed  to  the  customs  of  the  Church 
universal.  Even  when  we  were  made  aware  that  this  was  not  the  case  with 
the  Britons,  yet  we  hoped  better  things  of  the  Irish.  We  have,  however, 
learned  from  Bishop  Dagan,  who  has  lately  arrived  in  the  island,  and  from 
the  Galilean  abbot,  Columbanus,  that  the  Irish  do  in  no  respect  differ  from 
the  Britons.  Bishop  Dagan  indeed,  since  he  came  among  us,  has  not  only 
refused  to  eat  with  us,  but  even  to  take  food  in  the  same  house  with  us." 
(Bede,   Hist,   Eccles.   IT,    iv.) 

205 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

2.  Irish  Work  Beginning  of  English  Civilization 

It  was  at  this  crucial  period  that  the  Irish  missionaries 
appeared  on  the  scene  and  started  a  more  enduring  move- 
ment of  conversion.  For  it  was  they  who  with  strong 
hands  put  the  bit  and  bridle  on  the  wild  English  tribes, 
tamed  their  savagery,  kindled  into  flame  the  human  spark 
within  them,  and  led  them  despite  themselves  along  the 
paths  of  Christian  civilization.  The  work  was  prolonged 
and  suffered  many  setbacks,  from  the  natural  backward- 
ness and  brutality  inherent  in  a  savage  population,  from 
Danish  inroads,  from  unceasing  tribal  conflicts,  and  from 
pestilence  and  famine.  But  these  great  Irishmen  per- 
severed and  made  their  work  permanent.  Where  the 
Roman  had  signally  failed,  the  Irishman  signally  suc- 
ceeded, and  wherever  he  took  the  work  in  hand  the  En- 
glish never  looked  back.  In  the  work  of  these  Irishmen 
English  history  and  English  civilization  find  written  their 
book  of  Genesis. 

William  of  Malmesbury  tells  the  tale  simply  when  he 
talks  of  the  faith  of  the  English  having  been  ^'brought  to 
maturity  by  the  learning  of  the  Irish."  Modern  writers 
are  more  expansive. 

"The  men  who  really  plowed  and  harrowed  the 
soil  which  was  lying  fallow  among  the  masculine  and 
vigorous  peoples  of  northern  and  central  England,  of 
Northumbria  and  Mercia,  were  not  Augustine's  monks, 
but,  as  we  have  seen,  the  never-tired,  resourceful,  and 
sympathetic  spiritual  children  of  St.  Columba,  St.  Aidan 
and  their  disciples."^ 

The  immediate  call  that  brought  the  van  of  the  Irish 
missionaries  among  the  Anglo-Saxon  tribes  came  from 
Oswald,  the  native  ruler  of  the  Northumbrians.    Oswald, 

iHoworth.  Golden  Days  of  the  English  Church,  II,  171. 

206 


Roman  and  Irish   Missionaries  in   England 

his  brother  Eanfrid,  his  mother,  the  widow  of  the  savage 
Ethelfrid,  and  a  large  number  of  his  relatives  and  sup- 
porters, had  for  many  years  been  given  shelter  and  pro- 
tection in  Ireland  and  Hibernicized  Britain.  Oswald 
was  twelve  years  old  at  the  period  of  his  departure  into 
exile  in  617.  He  returned  in  634  with  his  companions, 
all  of  them  enriched  by  contact  with  a  civilization  till 
then  wholly  strange  to  them.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  the 
impression  made  on  the  minds  of  these  simple  barbarians 
by  what  they  saw  in  Ireland  where  Greco-Roman  culture 
blended  with  ancient  Celtic  wisdom  and  splendor  mel- 
lowed the  national  life  and  enriched  the  channels  through 
which  it  flowed.  Oswald  and  his  companions  returned 
to  England,  not  only  Christianized  but  also  completely 
Hibernicized,  fluent  speakers  of  the  Irish  tongue,  and 
wholly  devoted  to  Irish  ideals.  The  returned  wanderers 
were  doubtless  glad  to  find  themselves  once  again  amid 
the  scenes  of  their  youth,  but  it  is  little  wonder  that  the 
call  for  help  to  lona  was  speedy.  The  brutalities,  the 
indecencies,  the  horror  and  the  squalor  of  unchanging 
barbarism,  once  so  natural  to  them,  could  not  henceforth 
be  other  than  unendurable.  To  his  Irish  benefactors 
Oswald  therefore  sent  hurried  appeals,  and  these,  recog- 
nizing under  the  savage  manners  and  exterior  of  their 
proteges  the  elements  of  a  common  humanity,  and  think- 
ing the  season  opportune,  decided  to  essay  their  regenera- 
tion. 

3.  AiDAN  Among  the  English  Tribes 
Bede  picturesquely  describes  the  manner  in  which  the 
Irish  missionaries  were  led  into  northern  England.  King 
Oswald  as  soon  as  he  ascended  the  throne  sent  to  the  elders 
of  the  Irish,  among  whom  he  and  his  followers,  when 
in  banishment,  had  received  the  sacrament  of  baptism, 

207 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

desiring  they  would  send  him  a  bishop,  by  whose  instruc- 
tion and  ministry  the  English  nation,  which  he  governed, 
might  be  taught  the  advantages  and  receive  the  sacrament 
of  the  Christian  faith.  They  were  not  slow  in  granting 
his  request  and  sent  him  Bishop  Aidan,  a  man  of  singular 
meekness,  piety  and  moderation,  zealous  in  the  cause  of 
God.  On  his  arrival  the  bishop  fixed  his  episcopal  see 
in  the  isle  of  Lindisfarne.  King  Oswald  also  humbly 
and  willingly  in  all  cases  gave  ear  to  his  admonitions, 
industriously  applying  himself  to  the  workof  buildingand 
extending  the  church  of  Christ  in  his  kingdom;  wherein 
when  the  bishop,  who  was  not  skilful  in  the  English 
tongue,  preached  the  gospel,  it  was  most  delightful  to  see 
the  king  himself  interpreting  the  word  of  God  to  his 
commanders  and  ministers,  for  Oswald  had  acquired  a 
perfect  mastery  of  the  Irish  tongue  during  his  long 
banishment.*  Oswald's  family  and  the  Northumbrian 
nobility  were  in  large  part  fluent  Irish  speakers  and  in 
some  degree  representatives  of  the  new  Irish  learning. 
This  learning  gradually  spread. 

The  varied  labors  of  the  Irishmen  are  indicated  by 
Bede:  "From  that  time  many  of  the  Irish  came  daily 
into  Britain  and  with  great  devotion  preached  the  word 
to  those  provinces  of  the  English  over  which  King'Oswald 
reigned,  and  those  among  them  that  had  received  priests' 
orders  administered  to  them  the  grace  of  baptism. 
Churches  were  built  in  several  places;  the  people  joyfully 
flocked  together  to  hear  the  word ;  money  and  lands  were 
given  of  the  king's  bounty  to  build  monasteries;  the 
English,  great  and  small,  were  by  their  Irish  masters 
instructed  in  the  rules  and  observance  of  regular  disci- 
pline ;  for  most  of  them  that  came  to  preach  were  monks."^ 

iHist.  Eccl.  III.  III. 
2  Hist.  EccL  III,  III. 

208 


Roman  and  Irish  Missionaries  in   England 

Others  were,  as  Bede  later  tells  us,  laymen — physi- 
cians, scribes,  lawyers,  goldsmiths  and  the  like — tho  the 
monks  were  working  in  most  of  the  secular  occupations 
too.  Bishop  Aidan  was  himself  a  monk  of  the  island  of 
Hii  or  lona,  which  monastery  was  for  a  long  time  the 
chief  of  almost  ail  those  of  the  northern  Irish  and  all 
those  of  the  Picts  and  had  the  direction  of  their  people. 
Bede  adds:  "That  island  (lona)  belongs  to  Britannia, 
being  divided  from  it  by  a  small  arm  of  the  sea,  but  had 
been  long  since  given  by  the  Picts,  who  inhabit  those 
parts  of  Britannia,  to  the  Irish  monks,  because  they  had 
received  the  faith  of  Christ  through  their  preaching.'" 

It  was  from  this  island  and  college  of  monks  that  Aidan 
was  sent  to  instruct  the  English  natives,  having  received 
the  dignity  of  a  bishop  at  the  time  when  Seginus,  abbot 
and  priest,  presided  over  the  monastery;  whence  among 
other  instructions  for  life  Aidan  left  the  clergy  a  most 
salutary  example  of  abstinence  and  continence.  "It  was 
the  highest  commendation  of  his  doctrine  with  all  men," 
adds  Bede,  "that  he  taught  no  otherwise  than  he  and  his 
followers  had  lived;  for  he  neither  sought  nor  loved  any- 
thing of  this  world,  but  delighted  in  distributing  im- 
mediately among  the  poor  whatsoever  was  given  him  by 
the  kings  and  rich  men  of  the  world.  He  was  wont  to 
traverse  both  town  and  country  on  foot,  never  on  horse- 
back, unless  compelled  by  some  urgent  necessity;  and 
wherever  in  his  way  he  saw  either  rich  or  poor,  he  invited 
them,  if  infidels,  to  embrace  the  mystery  of  the  faith;  or, 
if  they  were  believers,  to  strengthen  them  in  the  faith,  and 
to  stir  them  up  by  words  and  actions  to  alms  and  good 
works.'" 

Things  had  become  diflferent  in  England  in  the  days 

1  Hist.  Eccl.  Ill,  III. 

2  Hist.  Eccl.  Ill,  V. 

15  209 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

of  Bede  who  wrote  nearly  a  century  after  the  arrival  of 
Aidan:  ''His  course  of  life  was  so  different  from  the 
slothfulness  of  our  times  that  all  those  who  bore  him 
company,  whether  monks  or  laymen,  were  employed  in 
meditation,  that  is,  either  in  reading  the  scriptures,  or 
learning  psalms."  This  was  the  daily  employment  of 
Aidan  himself  and  of  all  that  were  with  him  wheresoever 
they  went.  Study,  work,  and  prayer  were  the  main  occu- 
pations and  happiness  of  their  lives,  and  if  it  happened, 
which  was  but  seldom,  that  Aidan  was  invited  to  eat  with 
the  king  the  bishop  "went  accompanied  with  one  or  two 
clerks,  and  having  taken  a  small  repast,  made  haste  to 
be  gone  again  with  them  either  to  read  or  write."^ 

In  words  such  as  these  we  sense  the  consuming  passion 
that  flamed  in  the  breast  of  this  great  Irish  pontiff  who,  in 
the  course  of  sixteen  years,  by  unflagging  work  and  plan- 
ning, effected  the  regeneration  of  the  English  people. 
His  personality  singularly  affected  the  English  tribes,  so 
that  the  brightest  amongst  them  thought  they  could  do 
nothing  better  than  do  whatever  he  did  or  told  them  to 
do,  difficult  though  it  might  be.  "At  that  time  many 
religious  men  and  women,  stirred  up  by  his  example, 
adopted  the  custom  of  fasting  on  Wednesdays  and  Fri- 
days, till  the  ninth  hour,  throughout  the  year,  except 
during  the  fifty  days  after  Easter."^ 

Bede  goes  on  to  tell  us  that  Aidan  never  bestowed  gifts 
of  money  on  the  powerful  men  of  the  world,  but  only 
meat,  if  he  happened  to  entertain  them;  and,  on  the  con- 
trary, whatsoever  gifts  of  money  he  received  from  the 
rich,  he  either  distributed  among  the  poor,  or  used  in 
ransoming  such  as  had  been  wrongfully  sold  for  slaves. 
Enslaving  each  other  and  selling  their  younger  or  weaker 

iHist.  Eccl.   Ill,   V. 
2  Ibid.  Ill,  V. 

2IO 


Roman  and  Irish  Missionaries  in   England 

relatives  into  slavery  was,  as  has  been  said,  an  habitual 
practice  among  the  English,  and  it  was  against  this  terri- 
ble traffic  that  Aidan's  influence  was  directed.  Many  of 
those  ransomed  by  him  he  made  his  disciples,  and,  after 
having  instructed  them,  he  advanced  them  in  some  cases 
to  the  order  of  priesthood.  Eata,  subsequent  bishop  of 
Lindisfarne,  and  Boisel,  prior  of  Melrose^  were  among 
these  redeemed  proteges  of  Aidan.^ 

From  among  the  brightest  of  these  young  men  Aidan 
formed  a  school  of  twelve  boys,  and  the  school  included 
Chad  and  Cedd,  who  both  became  distinguished  bishops. 
The  tradition  was  carried  through  the  Irish  foundations 
of  the  Continent.  When  St.  Anskar,  educated  at  Corbie, 
began  his  missionary  work  in  Denmark  he  also  founded  a 
school  of  twelve  boys. 

4.   Irish  Prelate  and  Anglian  King 

Bede  tells  us  that  before  Aidan  the  Irish  had  sent 
another  priest  to  administer  the  word  of  faith  to  Oswald 
and  his  nation,  a  man  of  more  austere  disposition,  who, 
meeting  with  no  success,  and  being  unregarded  by  the 
English  people,  returned  home,  and  in  an  assembly  of  the 
Irish  elders  reported  that  he  had  not  been  able  to  do  any 
good  to  the  nation  he  had  been  sent  to  preach  to,  because 
they  were  uncivilized  men,  and  of  a  stubborn  and  bar- 
barous disposition.^  In  a  great  council  the  Irish  author- 
ities seriously  debated  what  was  to  be  done,  for  they 
strongly  desired  that  the  English  nation  should  receive 
the  salvation  it  demanded,  and  grieved  that  the  preacher 
they  had  sent  had  not  been  received.  Then,  said  Aidan, 
who  was  present  in  the  council,  "I  am  of  opinion,  brother, 

iHist.  Eccl.  Ill,  V. 

2  Ibid.  Ill,  V.  Bede  does  not  give  us  the  name  of  this  priest,  but  Hector 
Boece  says  he  was  named  Gorman. 

211 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of  Britain 

that  you  were  more  severe  to  your  unlearned  hearers  than 
you  ought  to  have  been  and  did  not  at  first,  conformably 
to  the  apostolic  rule,  give  them  the  milk  of  more  easy 
doctrine,  till  being  by  degrees  nourished  with  the  word 
of  God,  they  should  be  capable  of  greater  perfection,  and 
be  able  to  practice  God's  sublimer  precepts."  Having 
heard  these  words  of  Aidan  all  present  began  diligently 
to  weigh  what  he  had  said,  and  presently  concluded  that 
he  deserved  to  be  made  a  bishop,  and  ought  to  be  sent  to 
instruct  the  incredulous  and  unlearned;  since  he  was 
found  to  be  endowed  with  singular  discretion,  which  is 
the  mother  of  other  virtues.  "Accordingly,"  says  Bede, 
"they  sent  him  to  their  friend.  King  Oswald,  to  preach; 
and  he,  as  time  proved,  afterwards  appeared  to  possess 
all  other  virtues  as  well  as  the  discretion  for  which  he 
was  before  remarkable."* 

Bede  draws  a  pleasing  picture  of  the  friendship 
between  the  Irish  prelate  and  the  English  king,  who 
under  Aidan's  influence  grew  into  a  beautiful  character. 
Once  when  sitting  at  dinner  on  Easter  Sunday  with  Bishop 
Aidan  a  silver  dish  full  of  dainties  was  put  before  the 
king  and  they  were  just  ready  to  bless  the  bread,  when 
the  servant  who  had  been  appointed  to  relieve  the  poor 
came  in  on  a  sudden  and  told  the  king  that  a  great  multi- 
tude of  needy  persons  from  all  parts  were  sitting  in  the 
streets  begging  some  alms  of  the  king;  he  immediately 
ordered  the  meat  set  before  him  to  be  carried  to  the  poor 
and  the  dish  to  be  cut  in  pieces  and  divided  among  them. 
At  which  sight  the  bishop,  who  sat  by  him,  much  taken 
with  such  an  act  of  piety,  laid  hold  of  his  right  hand  and 
said:  "May  this  hand  never  perish!"  Which  fell  out 
according  to  his  prayer,  adds  Bede,  for  his  arm  and  hand, 

iHist.  Eccl.  Ill,  V. 

212 


Roman  and  Irish  Missionaries  in   England 

being  cut  from  his  body  when  he  was  slain  in  battle, 
remained  entire  and  uncorrupted,  being  kept  in  a  silver 
case  as  revered  relics  in  St.  Peter's  Church  in  the  royal 
city  of  Bamborough.  Instructed  by  the  teaching  of 
Aidan,  Oswald  not  only  learned  to  hope  for  a  heavenly 
kingdom  unknown  to  his  progenitors,  but  also  extended 
his  earthly  kingdom,  and  through  the  king's  management 
the  provinces  of  Deira  and  Bernicia  were  peacefully 
united  and  their  inhabitants  molded  into  one  people/ 

Here  we  have  a  picture  of  Aidan  in  the  character  of 
statesman  and  prime  minister.  A  man  of  varied  culture 
and  balanced  judgment,  his  influence  appears  to  have  been 
strongly  in  the  direction  of  union  of  effort  and  broader 
organization  in  national  life.  Considering  that  he  was  a 
stranger  among  a  barbarous  people,  the  reverence  in 
which  he  was  held  and  his  undisputed  authority  speak 
eloquently  for  his  character  and  gifts. 

Oswald  thus,  with  Aidan's  aid,  succeeded  in  uniting 
Deira  and  Bernicia  and  became,  after  the  Irish  fashion, 
a  sort  of  ard  righ  or  high  king  over  most  of  England. 
Throughout  this  area  Irish  teachers  became  numerous. 
Preaching  the  gospel  was  their  main  business,  but  it  was 
by  no  means  their  sole  business.  As  the  years  went  on 
they  trained  the  natives  in  agriculture  and  the  breeding 
of  cattle,  in  carpentry,  in  building,  and  the  use  of  the 
forge,  in  metal  and  enamel  work,  in  stonecutting,  and 
in  the  preparation,  transcription  and  ornamentation  of 
books.  In  several  of  these  lines  their  work  and  that  of 
their  English  understudies  remain  in  examples  that  have 
attracted  the  attention  of  archeologists  for  centuries. 

iHist.   Eccl.   Ill,  VI, 


213 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of  Britain 

5.  English  Natives  and  Their  Rulers  Sheltered 
AND  Educated  in  Ireland 

Considering  that  Oswald  was  the  son  of  Ethelf  rid,  the 
cannibal  king  and  butcher  of  the  unarmed  religious  of 
Bangor  in  Wales,  his  transition  from  the  barbarous  to 
the  civilized  state  was  a  speedy  one.  The  upbringing  he 
received  at  lona  and  in  Ireland  was  efifective  in  eliminat- 
ing the  heritage  of  savagery  which  otherwise  would  have 
controlled  his  life.  The  forced  exile  imposed  on  him  by 
Eadwine,  who  rose  to  power  after  his  father's  death,  thus 
proved  a  happy  circumstance.  Oswald  was  accompanied 
in  his  banishment  by  his  brothers  and  many  English 
chiefs. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  says  at  the  year  617:  "And 
he  (Eadwine)  drove  out  the  ethelings,  sons  of  Ethelf  rid; 
that  is  to  say,  first  Eanfrid,  Oswald  and  Oswy,  Oslar, 
Oswiedu,  Oslaf,  and  Ofifa,"  all  of  whom  were  given  safe 
keeping  and  education  in  lona  and  Ireland. 

Oswald's  elder  brother,  Eanfrid,  married  the  daughter 
of  the  king  of  the  Picts,  and  their  son,  Talorcan  (d.  657), 
presently  succeeded  to  the  Pictish  throne  in  right  of  his 
mother. 

Oswald  while  in  Ireland  appears  to  have  married  an 
Irish  princess,  Fina,  mother  of  Aldfrid  later  king  of 
Northumbria,  who  was  thus  known  to  the  Irish  as  Flan 
Fiona.  The  fact  would  explain  in  some  degree  the  growth 
of  Oswald  and  his  brother,  and  Aldfrid  in  refinement 
and  culture. 

In  the  "Three  Fragments"  of  Irish  Annals,  Aldfrid  or 
Flan  Fiona  is  called  "the  son  of  Ossa,  King  of  Saxonland, 
the  famous  wise  man,  the  pupil  of  Adamnan"  (in  t-einaid 
arma,  dalla  Adamnain) .  Here  Adamnan,  abbot  of  lona 
and  Latin  biographer  of  Columcille,  is  called  "Erin's 

214 


Roman  and  Irish  Missionaries  in   England 

chief  sage  of  learning"  (Ardsui  Erenn  eolusa).  This  is 
the  King  Aldfrid  who  wrote  poetry  in  Irish  and  Latin. 
Adamnan  and  Aldfrid  are  dealt  with  in  these  respects 
elsewhere. 

Oswald's  mother,  Acha,  sister  of  King  Eadwine,  went 
to  Ireland  with  her  sons.  Information  regarding  Oswald's 
acquirement  of  the  Irish  language  is  given  in  his  life; 
"linguam  Scottorum  perfecte  didicit  et  fidei  documenta 
quae  prius  a  matre  Christiana  perceperunt  gentis  illius 
credulae  eruditione  solidavit,  et  lavaero  sacri  baptismatis 
pureficatus."^ 

Other  Irish  annalists  refer  to  the  brothers.  Tighernach, 
using  both  Irish  and  Latin  after  his  manner,  speaks  of 
Eanfrid,  the  elder  brother  of  Oswald,  as  having  fought 
a  regular  battle,  and  says  that  afterwards  he  was  be- 
headed; "Cath  la  (praelium  per)  Cathlon  et  Anfraith 
qui  decollatus  est." 

Adamnan  relates  a  story  in  reference  to  the  struggle 
between  Oswald  and  Cadwalla,  which  his  predecessor  had 
heard  from  the  abbot  of  lona,  who  claimed  that  he  had 
again  heard  it  from  the  king  himself.  The  night  before 
the  battle  of  Heavenfield  while  Oswald  was  sleeping  on 
the  ground  in  his  tent  St.  Columcille  appeared  to  him, 
radiant  with  angelic  beauty,  and  his  stately  height  seemed 
to  reach  the  sky.  The  saint  stood  in  the  midst  of  the  camp, 
announced  himself,  and  stretched  his  resplendent  robe 
over  the  little  army  of  exiles,  as  if  to  protect  them.  He 
promised  to  secure  them  victory  over  their  enemies.  At 
that  time  there  were  only  twelve  of  his  companions  who 
were  Christians,  having  been  baptized  with  him  among 
the  Irish.' 

iVita  OswaJdi,  12  cent,  by  Reginald  of  Durham,  Simeon  of  Durham,  I, 


341. 

2  Vita  S.  Columbae. 


215 


CHAPTER  XVII 
FIRST  STEPS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  IN  CIVILIZATION 

I.  King  Oswin's  Veneration  for  Irish  Prelate.  2.  Aidan  and  His 
Foundations  in  England.  3.  Finan  Succeeds  Aidan  and  Wins  Mid- 
land England.  4.  Re-converts  Apostate  East  Saxons.  5.  Rise  of  the 
Easter  Controversy. 

I.   King  Oswin's  Veneration  for  Irish  Prelate 

THE  friendship  that  united  Aidan  and  Oswald  was 
continued  in  the  case  of  Oswald's  successor,  Oswin, 
whose  habitual  attitude  towards  the  prelate  was 
one  of  great  veneration.  Bede  relates  an  anecdote  which 
illuminates  the  character  both  of  the  bishop  and  the  king. 
Oswin  had  given  an  extraordinarily  fine  horse  to  Bishop 
Aidan,  which  he  might  use  in  crossing  rivers  or  in  per- 
forming journeys  of  urgent  necessity,  tho  he  was  wont 
to  travel  on  foot.  Some  short  time  after,  a  poor  man  meet- 
ing him  asking  alms,  he  immediately  dismounted  and 
ordered  the  horse  with  all  its  royal  furniture  to  be  given 
to  the  beggar;  for  he  was  very  compassionate,  a  great 
friend  of  the  poor,  and  as  it  were,  the  father  of  the 
wretched.  This  being  told  to  the  king  when  they 
were  going  to  dinner,  he  said  to  the  bishop:  "Why 
would  you,  my  lord  bishop,  give  the  poor  man  the 
royal  horse,  which  was  necessary  for  your  use?  Had 
not  we  many  lother  horses  of  less  value  and  of 
other  sorts,  which  would  have  been  good  enough 
to  the  poor  and  not  to  give  that  horse  which  I 
had  particularly  chosen  for  yourself?"     To  whom    the 

216 


First  Steps  of  the  English  in  Civilization 

bishop  instantly  answered,  "What  is  it  you  say,  O  king? 
Is  that  foal  of  a  mare  more  dear  to  you  than  the  Son  of 
God?"  Upon  this  they  went  in  to  dinner  and  the  bishop 
sat  in  his  place;  but  the  king,  who  was  come  from 
hunting,  stood  warming  himself  with  his  attendants  by 
the  fire.  Then,  on  a  sudden,  while  he  was  warming  him- 
self, calling  to  mind  what  the  bishop  had  said  to  him, 
he  ungirt  his  sword  and  gave  it  to  a  servant,  and  in  a 
hasty  manner  fell  down  at  the  bishop's  feet,  beseeching 
him  to  forgive  him :  "For  from  this  time  forward,"  said 
he,  "I  will  never  speak  any  more  of  this,  nor  will  I  judge 
of  what  or  how  much  of  our  money  you  shall  give  to 
the  sons  of  God."  The  bishop  was  much  moved  at  this 
sight  and  starting  up  raised  him  saying  he  was  entirely 
reconciled  to  him,  if  he  would  sit  down  to  his  meat  and 
lay  aside  all  sorrow.  The  king,  at  the  bishop's  command 
and  request,  beginning  to  be  merry,  the  bishop,  on  the 
other  hand,  grew  so  melancholy  as  to  shed  tears.  His 
priest  then  asking  him  in  the  Irish  language,  which  the 
king  and  his  servants  did  not  understand,  why  he  wept, 
"I  know,"  said  he,  "that  the  king  will  not  live  long;  for 
I  never  saw  so  humble  a  king;  whence  I  conclude  that 
he  soon  will  be  snatched  out  of  this  life,  because  his 
nation  was  not  worthy  of  such  a  ruler."  Not  long  after, 
the  bishop's  prediction  was  fulfilled  by  the  king's  death. 
But  Bishop  Aidan,  adds  Bede,  was  also  himself  taken  out 
of  this  world  twelve  days  after  the  king  he  loved,  to 
receive  the  eternal  reward  of  his  labors  from  our  Lord.* 

Aidan,  Bede  tells  us,  was  in  the  king's  country  house, 
not  far  from  Bamborough,  at  the  time  of  his  death;  for, 
having  a  church  and  chamber  there,  he  was  wont  often 
to  go  and  stay,  and  to  make  excursions  to  preach  to  the 

1  Hist.  Eccl.  Ill,  XIV. 

217 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of  Britain 

country  round  about,  which  he  likewise  did  at  other  of 
the  king's  country-seats,  having  nothing  of  his  own  besides 
his  church  and  a  few  fields  about  it.  When  he  was  sick 
they  set  up  a  tent  for  him  close  to  the  wall  at  the  west  end  of 
the  church,  by  which  means  it  happened  that  he  gave  up 
the  ghost  leaning  against  a  post  that  was  on  the  outside 
to  strengthen  the  wall.  He  died  in  the  seventeenth  year 
of  his  episcopate.  His  body  was  thence  transferred  to 
the  isle  of  Lindisfarne  and  buried  in  the  churchyard 
belonging  to  the  brethren.  Some  time  after,  when  a 
larger  church  was  built  there  and  dedicated  in  honor 
of  the  blessed  prince  of  the  Apostles,  continues  Bede, 
his  bones  were  translated  thither  and  deposited  on  the 
right  side  of  the  altar  with  the  respect  due  to  so  great  a 
prelate.  When  Penda,  the  pagan  king  of  the  Mercians, 
coming  into  Northumbria  with  a  hostile  army,  destroyed 
all  he  could  with  fire  and  sword,  including  the  village 
and  church  in  which  Aidan  died,  it  fell  out  in  a  wonder- 
ful manner,  says  Bede,  that  the  post  which  he  had  leaned 
upon  could  not  be  consumed  by  the  flames.^  He  also 
relates  how  Aidan,  residing  in  the  isle  of  Fame,  by  his 
prayers  saved  the  royal  city  of  Bamborough,  when  fired 
by  the  enemy,  this  same  Penda.* 

Bede  tells  us  that,  like  an  impartial  historian,  he  has 
related  what  was  done  by  or  with  Bishop  Aidan,  pre- 
serving the  memory  thereof  for  the  benefit  of  the  readers; 
viz.,  his  love  of  peace  and  charity;  his  continence  and 
humility;  his  mind  superior  to  anger  and  avarice;  and 
despising  pride  and  vainglory;  his  industry  in  keeping 
and  teaching  the  heavenly  commandments;  his  diligence 
in  reading  and  watching;  his  authority  becoming  a  priest 

iHist.  Eccl.  III.  XVII. 
2  Hist.  Eccl.  Ill,  XVI. 

2l8 


First  Steps  of  the  English  in  Civilization 

in  reproving  the  haughty  and  powerful,  and  at  the  same 
time  his  tenderness  in  comforting  the  afflicted  and  reliev- 
ing or  defending  the  poor.  "To  say  all  in  a  few  words, 
as  near  as  I  could  be  informed  by  those  that  knew  him, 
he  took  care  to  omit  none  of  those  things  which  he  found 
in  the  apostolic  or  prophetical  writings,  but  to  the  utmost 
of  his  power  endeavored  to  perform  them  all."* 

Bede's  eulogy  of  Aidan  has  the  more  value  inasmuch 
as  he  did  not  approve  of  the  date  of  the  Celtic  obser- 
vance of  Easter,  nay,  "very  much  detesting  the  same,"  as 
lie  clearly  indicates  by  his  continued  'recurrence  to  a 
theme  which  excited  great  controversy  and  perturbation 
of  mind  in  his  day.  But  these  aforesaid  things  he  much 
loved  and  admired  in  the  bishop.  "This  difference  about 
the  observance  of  Easter,  whilst  Aidan  lived,  was  patiently 
tolerated  by  all  men,  as  being  sensible,  that,  tho  he  could 
not  keep  Easter  contrary  to  the  custom  of  those  who  had 
sent  him,  yet  he  industriously  labored  to  practise  all  works 
of  faith,  piety,  and  love,  according  to  the  custom  of  all 
holy  men;  for  which  reason  he  was  deservedly  beloved 
by  all,  even  by  those  who  differed  in  opinion  concerning 
Easter,  and  was  held  in  veneration,  not  only  by  indifferent 
persons,  but  even  by  the  bishops  Honorius  of  Canterbury 
and  Felix  of  East  Angles." 

2.  Aidan  and  His  Foundations  in  England 

Aidan,  like  most  of  the  notable  members  of  other  Irish 
monasteries,  was  of  high  birth,  a  fact  which  had  a  good 
deal  to  do  in  endowing  him  with  influence  both  among 
the  Irish  clans  and  the  English  tribes.  He  was  a  son  of 
Lugair,  an  Irish  saint  commemorated  on  May  nth,  and 
apparently  of  the  same  lineage  as  St.  B rigid.     He  was 

iHist.  Eccl.  Ill,  XVII. 

219 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

accompanied  to  Northumbria  by  several  of  the  brethren 
of  lona,  who  increased  in  number  as  the  work  grew. 

Bishop  Lightfoot  writes  concerning  Aidan:  "I  know 
no  nobler  type  of  the  missionary  spirit.  His  character, 
as  it  appears  through  the  haze  of  antiquity,  is  almost 
absolutely  faultless.  Doubtless  the  haze  may  have 
obscured  some  imperfections  which  a  clearer  atmosphere 
and  a  nearer  view  would  have  enabled  us  to  detect.  But 
we  cannot  have  been  misled  as  to  the  main  lineaments 
of  the  man.  Measuring  him  side  by  side  with  other 
great  missionaries  of  those  days,  Augustine  of  Canter- 
bury, or  Wilfrid  of  York,  or  Cuthbert  of  his  own  Lindis- 
farne,  we  are  struck  with  the  singular  sweetness  and 
breadth  and  sympathy  of  his  character.  He  had  all  the 
virtues  of  his  Celtic  race  without  any  of  its  faults.  A 
comparison  with  his  own  spiritual  forefather — the  eager, 
headstrong,  irascible,  affectionate,  penitent,  patriotic, 
self-devoted  Columba,  the  most  romantic  and  attractive 
of  all  early  medieval  saints — will  justify  this  sentiment. 
He  was  tender,  sympathetic,  adventurous,  self-sacrificing, 
but  he  was  patient,  steadfast,  calm,  appreciative,  discreet 
before  all  things."^ 

Aidan,  before  he  became  a  monk  of  lona,  had  been 
bishop  of  Clogher,^  and  had  studied  under  the  blessed 
Senan  at  Iniscathay  (Scattery  Island).  His  arrival  in 
England  marked  an  epoch  in  its  national  life.  In  that 
hour  England  may  be  said  to  have  had  its  beginning. 
Where  there  had  been  little  else  but  chaos,  futility,  igno- 
rance and  infamy,  Aidan  placed  on  the  formless  mass  the 
first  imprint  of  order,  humanity  and  religion.  His  work 
marked  the  first  stage  in  the  transition  between  savagery 
and  organized  culture  in  English  history. 

1  Leaders  of  the  Northern  Church,  p.  44. 

2  According  to  Ware  and  Lynch. 

220 


First   Steps  of  the   English   in   Civilization 

Aldan's  chief  foundation  was  that  of  Lindisf  arne,  which 
was  to  radiate  light  and  healing  in  the  North  for  genera- 
tions and  eventually  to  develop  into  the  sees  of  Durham 
and  Northumberland,  and  even,  tho  less  directly,  into 
the  archbishopric  of  York.  After  Lindisfarne  he  and  his 
missionary  countrymen  founded  Mailros,  or  Melrose, 
and  Whitby,  then  known  as  Streaneshalch.  On  the  isle 
of  Fame  he  established  a  hermitage  to  which  he  himself 
was  wont  to  retire — later  it  became  the  favorite  retreat 
of  St.  Cuthbert;  and  he  founded  the  double  monastery 
of  Coldingham,  the  Urbs  Coludi  of  Bede,  which,  like  Ely 
and  Barking,  was  modeled  on  the  establishment  of  Kil- 
dare,  whose  patron  was  the  illustrious  Brigid,  "Mary  of 
the  Gael."  In  this  last  foundation  Aidan  was  associated 
with  Aebba,  sister  of  King  Oswald,  whose  name  is  still 
enshrined  in  St.  Abb's  Head  near  by.  Over  Melrose  as 
abbot,  Aidan  put  Boisel,  an  English  youth  whom  he  had 
ransomed  from  slavery,  master  of  Sigf rid,  who  was  master 
of  Bede. 

Lindisfarne  in  course  of  time  gathered  to  itself  sub- 
sidiary houses  or  cells,  among  them  St.  Balthere's  at 
Tynningham,  Craike,  Cunceceastre,  or  Chester-le-Street, 
Norham  and  Gainford.  The  see  also  came  into  possession 
of  large  lands  in  York. 

The  place  Lindisfarne  held  in  the  veneration  of  the 
English  is  indicated  by  the  emotion  of  Alcuin  on  the 
occasion  of  its  pillaging  by  the  Danes  (793)  :  "The  most 
venerable  place  in  Britain,  where  Christianity  first  took 
root  among  us  after  Paulinus  went  away  from  York,  is  a 
prey  to  heathen  men.  Who  thinks  of  this  calamity  and 
does  not  cry  out  to  God  to  spare  his  country  has  a  heart 
of  stone  and  not  of  flesh."^ 

1  Migne.,  Pat.  Lat.,  C, 

221 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

In  the  foundation  of  other  monasteries  Aidan  was  asso- 
ciated with  St.  Hilda.  Bede  tells  us  that  Hilda  went  and 
lived  a  whole  year  in  East  Anglia  with  the  design  of 
going  abroad,  but  being  recalled  by  Bishop  Aidan,  she 
received  from  him  the  land  of  one  family  on  the  north 
side  of  the  River  Wear,  where  for  a  year  she  also  led  a 
monastic  life  with  very  few  companions.  After  this  she 
was  made  abbess  of  the  monastery  called  Heruteu,  which 
monastery  had  been  founded  not  long  before  by  the 
religious  servant  of  Christ  Heiu,  whom  some  identify 
with  Begha,  or  Begu,  an  Irishwoman  of  noble  family, 
whose  name  is  preserved  in  St.  Bees  Head  in  Cumber- 
land. Heiu  is  said  to  have  been  the  first  woman  that  in 
the  province  of  the  Northumbrians  took  upon  her  the 
habit  and  life  of  a  nun,  being  consecrated  by  Bishop 
Aidan ;  but  she  soon  after  she  had  founded  that  monastery, 
went  away  to  the  city  of  Calcacestir,  and  there  fixed  her 
dwelling.  Hilda,  being  sent  over  to  that  monastery  began 
immediately  to  reduce  all  things  to  a  regular  system, 
according  as  she  had  been  instructed  by  learned  men; 
for  Bishop  Aidan  and  other  religious  men  that  knew 
and  loved  her  frequently  visited  and  diligently  instructed 
her.  Some  years  later  the  monastery  at  Streaneshalch 
(Whitby)  was  built  and  from  it  came  five  bishops — Bosa, 
Hedda,  Oftfor,  John  and  Wilfrid  (2nd).  St.  Hilda  was 
the  daughter  of  Hereric,  the  nepos  of  King  Aedwine. 
Attracted  by  the  reputation  of  some  of  the  Irish  convents 
in  Gaul,  she  appears  to  have  made  up  her  mind  to  join 
one  of  them,  but  if  Bede  is  to  be  taken  literally  she  did 
not  get  out  of  England,  being  summoned  back  by  Aidan. 
She  moved  to  Hartlepool  when  Heiu  went  to  Tadcaster, 
and  here  she  appears  to  have  had  the  help  of  certain 
learned  Irishmen.     In  651  when  Finan  had  succeeded 

222 


First   Steps   of  the   English   in   Civilization 

Aidan,  Whitby  monastery  was  established  on  the  Irish 
double  monastery  plan,  "Mother  Hilda"  presiding  over 
both.^ 

Several  of  the  Irish  foundations  in  Gaul  were  double 
monasteries.  Examples  were  Remiremont,  Soissons, 
Jouarre,  Brie,  Chelles  and  Andelys;  the  last  three,  as  Bede 
tells  us,  being  especially  favored  by  English  female  con- 
verts. Boniface  introduced  the  feature  in  Germany,  where 
the  establishments  were  in  several  cases  presided  over  by 
nuns  trained  at  Wimborne.  It  was  the  example  of  Hilda's 
sister  Heresuid,  mother  to  Aldwulf,  king  of  the  East 
Angles,  who  lived  at  Gale,  or  Chelles  in  France,  that 
led  her  to  desire  to  live  there.^ 

From  the  first  these  double  monasteries  flourished  in 
the  Irish  church,  perhaps  because  they  were  a  feature 
of  the  clan  system  when  men  and  women  alike  belonged 
to  the  same  religious  community.  In  Ireland  the  head 
of  such  monasteries  was  usually  a  man;  but  in  the  Irish 
monasteries  of  England,  especially  in  those  founded  by 
relatives  of  the  native  rulers,  and  in  Columbanus's  double 
monasteries  in  Gaul  and  Belgium,  the  monastery  of 
clerics  or  priests,  which  was  generally  placed  at  the  gates 
of  the  convent,  was  ruled  over  by  the  abbess.  The  singular 
inversion  of  the  normal  relationship  was  due  probably 
to  the  fact  that  in  such  cases  the  real  center  or  original 
foundation  was  the  convent,  but  that  for  the  spiritual 
needs  of  the  nuns  as  well  as  for  the  oversight  of  their 
lands  and  estates  there  grew  up  a  smaller  dependent 
monastery  of  priests  and  lay  brethren.  But  in  some 
monasteries  the  monks  were  in  the  majority.  Among 
the  double  monasteries  in  England,  most  of  them  Irish 
foundations,  Bardney,  Barkney,  Ely,  Whitby,  and  Cold- 

1  See  N.  B.  Workman,  Evolution  of  Monasticism,  pp.  177-8. 
2Eccl.  Hist.   IV,  XXIII. 

223 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

ingham  are  mentioned  by  Bede.  Others  existed  at  Wim- 
borne,  Repton,  Wenlock,  Nuneaton  and  perhaps  Carlisle/ 
The  following  churches  in  England  are  given  as  dedi- 
cated to  St.  Aidan:  Bamborough,  Benwell,  Blackhill,  Bos- 
ton, Gateshead,  Hartlepool,  Harrington,  Leeds,  Liver- 
pool, Newbiggin,  South  Shields,  Thorneyburn  and  Wal- 
ton-le-dale,  with  several  others  in  Scotland. 

3.  FiNAN  Succeeds  Aidan  and  Wins  Midland 
England 

When  Aidan  died  in  651  the  vacancy  in  the  see  of 
Lindisfarne  was  filled  by  his  fellow  countryman  Finan, 
who  was  likewise  a  monk  from  lona.  Bishop  Finan 
speedily  revealed  himself  as  a  man  of  action  as  well  as  a 
student.  He  erected  a  church  at  Lindisfarne,  larger  and 
stronger  than  the  temporary  structure  which  had  served 
Aidan.  Bede  says  that  after  the  manner  of  the  Irish,  he 
made  the  church  not  of  stone  but  of  hewn  oak  and  covered 
it  with  reeds;  and  the  same  was  afterwards  dedicated  in 
honorof  St.  Peter  the  Apostle  by  the  Reverend  Archbishop 
Theodore.  Bede's  words  here  have  often  been  taken  as  evi- 
dence that  there  were  no  churchesorbuildingsof  stoneand 
lime  in  Ireland  in  those  days.  This  is  an  error,  as  is  shown 
elsewhere  in  this  volume.  Numerous  stone  churches  and 
buildings  existed  in  Ireland  in  the  earliest  days  of  Chris- 
tianity and  some  of  them  are  in  existence  to-day.  The 
oldest  stone  churches  in  England,  Scotland  and  Wales  are 
built  in  the  Irish  fashion.  Eadbert,  later  bishop  of  Lindis- 
farne, took  ofif  the  thatch  at  Lindisfarne  and  covered  both 
roof  and  walls  of  the  church  with  plates  of  lead. 

Finan  established  the  monastery  of  St.  Mary's  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Tyne  and  another  at  Gilling  on  the  spot 

1  See  Howorth,  Golden  Days  of  the  Engl.  Church,  III,  184. 

224 


First  Steps  of  the  English  in  Civilization 

where  Oswin  had  been  murdered.  He  added  to  the 
growth  of  the  abbey  of  Streaneshalch,  or  Whitby,  which 
was  later  the  scene  of  the  Paschal  controversy.  Finan 
crowded  unceasing  activity  into  the  ten  years  of  his  epis- 
copate. From  lona  he  brought  the  ecclesiastical  lore  and 
discipline  there  taught  and  practised  and  set  up  centers 
for  their  distribution  over  the  region  through  which  his 
apostolate  carried  him.  Finan  was  a  man  of  lionhearted 
devotion,  which  the  blind  ferocities  of  the  paganism  amid 
which  he  moved  could  not  shake.  This  element  in  his 
character  is  signally  illustrated  by  his  successful  mission- 
ary work  among  the  wild  natives  of  middle  England. 
By  his  personality  and  preaching  he  won  over  many  of 
the  Mercian  tribes  with  their  chiefs,  and  with  Peada,  the 
son  of  the  obdurate  Penda,  king  of  the  Middle  Angles, 
whom  he  baptized  in  653.^  His  chief  associates  in  this 
work  were  the  priests  Cedd,  Adda,  Betti,  and  Diuma. 
Finan  made  Diuma,  a  cultivated  Irish  Scot,  bishop  of 
the  Middle  Angles  and  Mercia.  He  likewise  consecrated 
Chad  and  appointed  him  bishop  over  the  East  Saxons, 
whose  king,  Sigebert,  Finan  himself  baptized.  Finan's 
influence  is  thus  seen  to  have  em.braced  almost  the  entire 
western  half  of  England  and  he  was  largely  instrumental 
in  the  reconquest  of  the  East  Saxons  who  had  apostatized. 
He  held  strongly  to  the  Irish  or  Celtic  side  in  the  Paschal 
controversy  despite  the  friendly  remonstrance  of  Ronan, 
an  Irishman  who  had  lived  in  Gaul  and  Italy  and  had 
learned  to  conform  to  the  Roman  custom. 

Bede,  relating  how  the  province  of  the  Midland  Angles 
became  Christian,  tells  us  that  King  Peada,  son  of  Penda, 
was  baptized  by  Bishop  Finan,  with  all  his  earls  and 
soldiers  and  their  servants  that  came  along  with  him 

1  Hist.  Eccl.  HI,  XXI. 
16  225 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

at  a  noted  village  belonging  to  the  king  called  At  the 
Wall.  And  having  received  four  priests  who  for  their 
erudition  and  good  life  were  deemed  proper  to  instruct 
and  baptize  his  nation,  he  returned  home  with  much  joy. 
These  priests  were  Cedd  and  Adda  and  Betti  and  Diuma. 
The  aforesaid  priests,  arriving  in  the  province  with  the 
prince,  preached  the  word  and  were  willingly  listened  to; 
and  many,  as  well  of  the  nobility  as  of  the  common  sort, 
renouncing  the  abominations  of  idolatry,  were  baptized 
daily. 

4.   Re-converts  Apostate  East  Saxons 

When  King  Peada  was  slain  and  Oswy  succeeded  him 
Diuma  was  made  a  bishop  of  the  Midland  Angles,  as 
also  of  the  Mercians,  being  ordained  by  Bishop  Finan; 
for  the  scarcity  of  priests,  says  Bede,  was  the  occasion  that 
one  prelate  was  set  over  two  nations.  Having  in  a  short 
time  converted  many  people,  Diuma  died  among  the  Mid- 
land Angles  in  the  country  called  Feppingum;  and  Ceol- 
lach,  also  of  the  Irish  nation,  succeeded  him  in  the  bish- 
opric. This  prelate  not  long  after  left  his  bishopric  and 
returned  to  the  island  of  Hii  or  lona.  Ceollach's  suc- 
cessor in  the  bishopric  was  Trumhere,  an  Englishman, 
taught  and  ordained  bishop  by  the  Irish,  being  abbot  of 
the  monastery  which  was  called  Ingethlingum.^ 

At  that  time  also  Sigebert,  king  of  the  East  Saxons,  who 
had  cast  ofif  the  faith  when  they  expelled  Mellitus  their 
bishop,  continues  Bede,  was  baptized  with  his  friends 
by  Bishop  Finan  in  the  same  king's  village  of  At  the 
Wall.  King  Sigebert  returned  to  the  seat  of  his  kingdom 
requesting  of  King  Oswy  that  he  would  give  some  teach- 
ers, who  might  convert  his  nation.     Oswy  accordingly, 

1  Leeds,  Hist.  Eccl.  Ill,  XXIV. 

226 


First  Steps  of  the  English  in  Civilization 

sending  into  the  province  of  the  Midland  Angles,  invited 
to  him  the  man  of  God,  Cedd,  who  with  his  brothers  had 
been  trained  in  Ireland,  and  giving  him  another  priest 
for  his  companion,  sent  them  to  preach  to  the  East  Saxons. 
When  these  two  traveling  to  all  parts  of  the  country  had 
gathered  a  numerous  church  it  happened  that  Cedd 
returned  home  and  came  to  Lindisfarne  to  confer  with 
Finan,  who,  finding  how  successful  he  had  been  in  the 
work  of  the  gospel,  made  him  bishop  of  the  church  of 
the  East  Saxons,  calling  two  other  bishops  to  assist  at 
the  ordination.  Cedd,  having  received  the  episcopal  dig- 
nity, returned  to  his  province,  and  pursuing  the  work  he 
had  begun  with  more  ample  authority  built  churches  in 
several  places,  ordaining  priests  and  deacons  to  assist  him 
in  the  work  of  faith  and  the  ministry  of  baptizing,  espe- 
cially in  the  city  of  Ithancester  as  also  in  what  is  named 
Tilaburg,  or  Tilbury,  where  gathering  a  flock  of  servants 
of  Christ  he  taught  them  to  observe  the  discipline  of 
regular  life.^ 

Cedd  often  returned  to  his  own  country,  Northumbria, 
and  there  built  the  monastery  of  Lestingau,  or  Lastingham, 
establishing  therein  the  religious  customs  of  Lindisfarne. 
There  Cedd  died  and  left  the  monastery  to  be  governed 
after  him  by  his  brother  Ceadda,  or  Chad,  who  was  after- 
wards made  bishop  first  of  York  and  then  of  Litchfield. 
For  the  four  brothers,  Cedd  and  Cynebil,  Celin  and  Chad, 
were  all  celebrated  priests,  all  educated  in  Ireland  and 
at  Lindisfarne  and  two  of  them  became  bishops. 

5.  Rise  of  the  Easter  Controversy 

Prominent  also  in  England  in  the  time  of  Finan  was 
a  traveled  and  scholarly  Irishman  of  the  name  of  Ronan. 

1  Hist.  Eccl.  Ill,  XXII. 

227 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

In  the  controversy  which  raged  around  the  observance  of 
Easter,  Ronan  was  a  zealous  defender  of  the  Roman  view, 
which  had  long  before  been  adopted  by  people  in  the 
southern  half  of  Ireland,  but  which  was  strongly  opposed 
by  those  who  clung  to  the  tradition  of  Columcille. 
Ronan,^  Bede  tells  us,  instructed  in  ecclesiastical  truth, 
either  in  France  or  Italy,  disputed  with  Finan,  con- 
vincing many  or  at  least  inducing  them  to  make  a  more 
strict  inquiry  after  the  truth;  yet  he  could  not  prevail 
upon  Finan,  but  on  the  contrary  made  him  the  more 
inveterate  by  reproof  and  a  profest  opposer  of  the  truth, 
being,  adds  Bede,  of  a  hot  and  violent  temper.^ 

Ronan  may  have  been  identical  with  the  Romanus, 
mentioned  by  Bede,  a  Kentish  priest  and  chaplain  to 
Queen  Banfleda  who  followed  the  Roman  mode.  The 
different  observance  created  a  decided  confusion.  Thus 
it  happened  that  Easter  was  twice  kept  in  one  year;  when 
the  king,  having  ended  the  time  of  fasting,  kept  his 
Easter,  according  to  the  Irish  fashion,  the  queen  and  her 
followers  were  still  fasting  and  celebrating  Palm  Sunday. 
This  difference,  says  Bede,  whilst  Aidan  lived,  was 
patiently  tolerated  by  all  men,  for  he  was  deservedly 
beloved  by  all,  and  things  were  allowed  to  go  on  during 
the  episcopacy  of  Finan,  but  when  he  died  and  Colman, 
who  was  also  sent  out  of  Ireland,  came  to  be  bishop,  a  great 
controversy  rose.  This  reached  the  ears  of  King  Oswy 
and  his  son  Aldfrid:  for  Oswy,  having  been  instructed 
and  baptized  by  the  Irish  and  being  very  perfectly  skilled 
in  their  language,  thought,  says  Bede,  nothing  better  than 

1  Mabillon  argues  this  Ronan  very  probably  was  a  certain  "Peregrinus  ex 
genere  Scottorum."  who  is  called  Romanus  in  a  charter  reciting  the  founda- 
tion of  an  ecclesiatlcal  establishment  at  Mazeroles  on  the  River  Vienne  in 
Picardy.  of  which  he  and  fellow  peregrin!  were  the  first  occupants.  (Annal. 
Ord.  S.  Bened.,  i,  474,  and  J.  Stevenson,  Bede  426,  note;  see  also  Gall.  Christ., 
li,  1222.) 

2  Hist.  Eccl.  Ill,  XXV. 

228 


First  Steps  of  the   English  in  Civilization 

what  they  taught.  But  Aldfrid,  instructed  by  Wilfrid, 
who  had  learned  the  ecclesiastical  doctrine  in  Rome, 
thought  differently,  and  so  the  synod  of  Whitby  was  held 
and  the  Roman  observance  of  Easter  adopted.  In  the 
controversy  Bede  tells  us  that  the  Abbess  Hilda  and  her 
followers  were  for  the  Irish,  who  were  in  the  wrong,  as 
was  also  the  venerable  Bishop  Cedd,  who  in  the  council 
was  most  careful  interpreter  for  both  parties.  Agilbert  the 
Frank,  bishop  of  the  West  Saxons,  who  had  been  educated 
in  Ireland,  probably  in  the  South,  took  the  Roman  side.* 
The  Breviary  of  Aberdeen  says  of  Finan,  who  died 
February  9,  661,  that  he  was  "a  man  of  venerable  life,  a 
bishop  of  great  sanctity,  an  eloquent  teacher  of  unbeliev- 
ing races,  remarkable  for  his  training  in  virtue  and  his 
liberal  education,  surpassing  all  his  equals  in  every  man- 
ner of  knowledge,  as  well  as  in  circumspection  and  pru- 
dence, but  chiefly  devoting  himself  to  good  works,  and 
presenting  in  his  life  a  most  apt  example  of  virtue." 

iHist.   Eccl.   III.   XXV. 


229 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

FRUITS    OF    THE    IRISH    APOSTOLATE 
IN    ENGLAND 

I.  "Celtic"  Usages  and  the  Synod  of  Whitby.  2.  High  Birth  and 
Breeding  of  Irish  Founders.  3.  Frugality  and  Devotion  of  the 
Irish  Clerics.    4.  Colman  Founds  "Mayo  of  the  Saxons." 

I.  "Celtic"  Usages  and  the  Synod  of  Whitby 

THE  third  bishop  of  Lindisfarne  was  Colman,  the 
last  of  the  three  remarkable  Irishmen  who  estab- 
lished and  filled  the  see.  It  was  during  his  epis- 
copate that  the  Paschal  controversy  culminated  in  the 
synod  of  Whitby,  which  settled  it  as  far  as  Northumbria 
was  concerned. 

No  attempt  need  be  made  here  to  describe  in  detail  the 
proceedings  at  the  synod.  The  original  account  is  to 
be  found  in  Bede  and  accounts  based  on  that  of  Bede  in 
almost  every  English  history  that  has  been  printed.  The 
result  of  it  is  well  known.  In  sorrow  but  with  decision 
Colman  resigned  his  see  and  with  thirty  disciples,  includ- 
ing both  Irish  and  English,  departed  from  England. 

Irishmen  in  great  number  still  taught,  nevertheless,  in 
England,  particularly  in  the  South.  The  greater  part  of 
Ireland  had  thirty  years  before  conformed  to  the  Roman 
custom*  and  even  in  the  North  and  in  Scotland  what 
now  are  called  "Celtic"  usages — the  term  was  unknown 
in  medieval  days — were  not  in  universal  vogue.    The 

lAs  early  as  598  A.  D.,  Columbanus  writing  from  France  is  found  ex- 
postulating with  Pope  Gregory  on  the  subject  and  endeavoring  to  win  the 
pontiff  over  to  the  Irish  view.  His  letter  is  found  among  those  of  St.  Greg- 
ory's.    Epist.^  CXXVII,  Bk.  IX,  Registrum  Epistolarum. 

230 


Fruits  of  the  Irish  Apostolate  in  England 

controversy  raged  round  matters  of  ritual  and  did  not  deal 
with  fundamentals/ 

The  language  of  Bede,  who  championed  the  winning 
cause  in  the  dispute,  has  exaggerated  the  actual  extent 
of  the  change  from  the  Ionian  to  the  Roman  use.  The  time 
of  keeping  Easter  was  of  course  altered,  as  it  had  already 
been  altered  in  the  greater  part  of  the  Irish  church.  In 
other  matters,  such  as  the  tonsure  and  the  special  uses  in 
regard  to  the  canonical  hours,  the  old  fashions  continued 
largely  to  prevail.  It  is  not  credible  that  in  the  Irish 
monasteries  in  England  there  should  have  been  violent 
changes  in  matters  such  as  the  particular  form  of  the 
tonsure  or  of  the  special  psalms  or  collects  used  at  special 
times. 

While  the  Irish  bishops  and  missionaries  in  England 
did  not  do  everything,  they  did  a  great  deal,  and  it  is  well 
to  acknowledge  what  they  did  before  dwelling,  as  some 
writers  do,  on  what  they  left  undone.  Had  it  not  been  for 
the  Paschal  controversy  they  doubtless  would  have  gone 
much  farther  with  their  work.  To  pretend  they  did  not 
organize  dioceses  is  nonsense.  St.  Patrick  had  divided 
Ireland  into  dioceses,  numerous  indeed,  and  modeled 
according  to  clan  and  territory,  and  had  forbidden  one 
bishop  to  act  in  the  diocese  of  another.  Aidan,  Finan 
and  Colman,  as  far  as  they  went,  followed  in  England 

iThe  most  striking  literary  product  of  the  Easter  controversy  was  th» 
letter  addressed  by  Cummian,  writingr  from  Clonfert  in  640,  to  Segenus,  abbot 
of  lona.  From  it  we  learn  that  the  Irish  government  had  in  634  sent  a 
commission  of  representative  Irish  scholars  to  Borne  to  get  the  full  facts 
on  the  spot.  The  report  brought  back  by  them  won  most  of  Ireland  over 
to  the  Roman  custom.  Cummian's  work  is  a  marvelous  production.  'It 
proves  the  fact  to  demonstration  that  in  the  first  half  of  the  seventh  century, 
there  was  a  wide  range  of  Greek  learning,  not  ecclesiastical  merely,  but 
chronological,  astronomical  and  philosophical,  away  at  Durrow  in  the  very 
centre  of  the  Bog  of  Allen"  (G.  Stokes,  Roy.  I.  Acad..  Proceedings.  1892, 
p.  195).  The  oldest  copy  of  Cummian's  work  is  preserved  in  a  ninth  century 
Irish  manuscript  at  St.  Gall.  Migne  reproduces  it  (Patrologia  Latina, 
liXXXVn,  cols.  969-97S).  and  Healy  gives  a  translated  digest  of  it  (Ireland's 
Ancient  Schools  and  Scholars). 

231 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

the  plan  of  St.  Patrick.  Had  time  been  allowed  them 
they  and  their  successors  doubtless  would  have  done  what 
Theodore  subsequently  accomplished  in  their  place. 
Theodore's  work  is  alleged  by  historians,  the  one  slav- 
ishly echoing  the  other,  to  have  shown  the  superior  organ- 
izing genius  of  the  Roman.  The  allegation  merely  betrays 
the  imitative  prejudice  of  the  historian.  Theodore  was 
not  a  Roman;  Augustine  was.  Augustine  accomplished 
far  less  than  the  Irishmen.  Theodore  had  the  work  both 
of  Augustine  and  the  Irishmen  to  build  upon.  He  did 
a  great  work,  but  his  work  was  made  possible  only  by 
the  work  of  his  predecessors.  As  Stubbs  remarks,  Theo- 
dore could  have  done  very  little  if  the  Irish  had  not  pre- 
pared the  way. 

2.  High  Birth  and  Breeding  of  Irish  Founders 

An  attempt  has  been  made  by  some  English  historians 
to  depict  Wilfrid,  archbishop  of  York,  who  appears  to 
have  had  a  kink  in  his  character  which  prevented  sus- 
tained cooperation  in  any  work  with  others,  as  a  sort  of 
grand  seigneur  and  Cardinal  Richelieu,  a  polished  and 
fastidious  ecclesiastical  statesman  and  patron  of  arts  and 
letters,  in  contrast  with  the  rude  but  ascetic  Irish  enthu- 
siasts of  Lindisfarne.  The  attempt  is  absurd  in  the  last 
degree.  It  is  true  that  Wilfrid  must  have  broadened  the 
education  he  received  at  Lindisfarne  by  his  travels  on  the 
Continent  where  the  chief  centers  of  culture  were  the 
numerous  Irish  foundations.  But  it  is  also  true  that 
Wilfrid  was  but  one  remove  from  the  unwashed  savage, 
while  the  Irish  monks  who  civilized  him,  the  leaders  of 
them  nearly  all  of  high  birth,  and  the  greatest  travelers 
of  their  age,  were  representatives  of  the  Celtic  civiliza- 
tion that  was  old  and  mellow  even  before  it  was  trans- 

232 


Fruits  of  the  Irish  Apostolate  in  England 


formed  by  Christianity.  Men  like  Aidan,  Finan  and 
Colman  were  representative  of  the  highest  taste  and 
culture  of  their  time.  There  were  in  that  age  no  more 
cultivated,  no  better  disciplined,  no  more  highly  polished, 
men  in  the  world.  The  trouble  with  this  type  of  English 
writer  is  that  he  knows  very  little  of  the  wonderland 
represented  in  Irish  literature  and  the  old  Irish  civiliza- 
tion. In  projecting  his  thought  into  an  earlier  age,  he 
carries  his  modern  environment  with  him  and  babbles 
in  phrases  of  hackneyed  superciliousness,  where  a  mood 
of  reverential  appreciation  would  be  proper  to  him. 

Indeed  the  more  prominent  Irish  schoolmen  and 
monastic  founders  were  nearly  all  men  of  high  birth 
affiliated  with  the  houses  of  those  potent  chiefs  to  whom 
the  annalists  give  the  title  of  king.  The  tone  of  authority 
which  men  like  Columbanus  and  Columcille  assume  in 
addressing  kings  and  even  popes,  the  facile  assurance  with 
which  men  like  Sedulius  Scotus  and  Johannes  Scotus 
Eriugena  address  the  monarchs  of  their  day  and  min- 
gle in  court  circles  with  the  highest  civil  and 
ecclesiastical  dignitaries,  the  even  calmness  with  which 
Aidan,  Finan  and  their  associates  receive  the  pros- 
trations of  English  kings  and  nobles,  the  directness  with 
which  Irishmen  on  the  Continent  attain  the  episcopal  or 
abbatial  dignity  in  days  when  bishops  and  abbots  were 
the  real  rulers  of  the  people,  their  habitual  composure  in 
the  presence  of  demonstrations  of  popular  reverence  that 
might  have  moved  the  hearts  of  kings  and  potentates — 
these  are  the  traits  of  men  accustomed  to  honor  from  child- 
hood, men  whose  natural  milieu  was  the  association  of 
the  great  and  learned,  and  in  whom  an  innate  pride  of 
birth  was  so  habitual  as  to  be  secor^d  nature.  lona  is 
indeed  one  of  the  palmary  instances  of  the  association 

233 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

in  Irish  civilization  of  ecclesiastical  authority  with  social 
dignity.  The  line  of  abbots  had  many  of  the  character- 
istics of  a  royal  dynasty/  so  that  a  genealogical  table  made 
out  by  antiquarians  contains  fifteen  abbots  of  lona  who, 
including  Columcille,  were  all  related  to  the  reigning 
families  of  Ulster,  and  descendants  of  the  royal  Conal 
Culban,  head  of  the  Cinell  Conaill.^ 

3.  Frugality  and  Devotion  of  the  Irish  Clerics 

Colman  was  bishop  of  Lindisfarne  three  years.  Fol- 
lowing the  synod  of  Whitby  he  resigned  his  see  and 
returned  to  Ireland,  taking  with  him  his  Irish  and  English 
followers.  When  Colman  was  gone  back  to  his  own  coun- 
try, says  Bede,  Tuda  was  made  bishop  of  the  Northum- 
brians in  his  place,  having  also  the  ecclesiastical  tonsure 
of  his  crown,  according  to  the  custom  of  that  province 
and  observing  the  Catholic  time  of  Easter.  He  was  a 
good  and  religious  man  but  governed  his  church  a  very 
short  time;  he  came  out  of  Ireland  whilst  Colman  was 
yet  bishop,  and,  both  by  word  and  example,  diligently 
taught  all  persons  those  things  that  appertain  to  the  faith 
and  truth.  But,  continues  Bede,  Eata,  who  was  abbot  of 
the  monastery  of  Melrose,  which  Aidan  had  established, 
a  most  reverend  and  meek  man,  was  appointed  abbot  over 
the  brethren  that  stayed  in  the  church  of  Lindisfarne, 
when  the  Irishmen  went  away.  Colman,  on  his  departure, 
it  appears,  requested  and  obtained  this  of  King  Oswy, 
because  Eata  was  one  of  Aidan's  twelve  boys  of  the 
English  nation,  whom  he  received  when  first  made  bishop 

iSee  "A  GeneaJogical  Table  of  the  Early  Abbots  of  Hy,  showing  Their 
Afllnity  to  One  Another  and  Their  CJonnections  with  the  Chief  Families  of 
Tyroonnell,  Constructed  from  the  Naehmseanchus,"  by  Dr.  Reeves:  "Irish 
Pedigrees,"  2  vols.,  by  John  O'Hart,  passim;  Hill  Burton,  History  of  Scot- 
land, I.  247. 

2Walahfrid  Strabo  (843)  dwells  on  the  high  birth  of  Blaithmac.  who 
belonged  to  the  family  of  Columcille;  Regali  de  stirpe  natus  summumqu* 
decorem  nobilitatis  habens  florebat  regius  heres  (Poetae  Latini  A.  C.  II,  297). 

234 


Fruits  of  the  Irish  Apostolate  in  England 

there,  to  be  instructed  in  Christ;  for  the  king  much  loved 
Bishop  Colman  on  account  of  his  singular  discretion. 
This  is  the  same  Eata  who  not  long  after  was  made  bishop 
of  the  same  church  of  Lindisfarne.  Colman  carried  home 
with  him  part  of  the  bones  of  the  most  reverend  father 
Aidan  and  left  part  of  them  in  the  church  where  he  pre- 
sided, ordering  them  to  be  interred  in  the  sacristy.* 

The  place  which  Bishop  Colman  governed,  Bede  goes 
on  to  say,  showed  how  frugal  he  and  his  predecessors 
were:  there  were  very  few  houses  besides  the  church 
found  at  their  departure;  indeed  no  more  than  was  barely 
sufficient  for  their  daily  residence;  they  had  also  no 
money,  but  cattle;  for  if  they  received  any  money  from 
rich  persons  they  immediately  gave  it  to  the  poor;  there 
being  no  need  to  gather  money  or  provide  houses  for  the 
entertainment  of  the  great  men  of  the  world,  for  such 
never  resorted  to  the  church,  except  to  pray  and  to  hear 
the  word  of  God.  The  king  himself,  when  opportunity 
offered,  came  only  with  five  or  six  servants  and,  having 
performed  his  devotions  in  the  church,  departed.  But 
if  they  happened  to  take  a  repast  there  they  were  satis- 
fied with  only  the  plain  and  daily  food  of  the  brethren 
and  required  no  more;  for  the  whole  care  of  those  teach- 
ers of  God  was  to  serve  God,  not  the  world,  to  feed  the 
soul,  not  the  body. 

In  all  which  observations  of  Bede  we  seem  to  feel  an 
undercurrent  of  reflection  and  reproach  on  the  manners 
of  the  times  in  which  he  lived  as  compared  to  that  earlier 
period  when  the  personal  influence  of  these  bishops  and 
teachers  was  paramount  in  the  land.^ 

iHist.  Eccl.  III.  XXV. 

2  Hist.  Eccl.  Ill,  XXVI.  Bede,  like  Alcuin,  exhibits  a  chronic  pessimism 
in  respect  to  the  English  natives.  In  the  commentary  on  St.  Luke,  written 
between  709  and  716,  he  expresses  his  fear  lest  the  sins  of  the  natives  bring 
upon  them  yet  sorer  punishment  (Peiora  iamiamque  superuentura  formidamus 
— Opp.  xi,  253).  His  letter  to  Egbert,  written  in  the  last  year  of  his  life 
(735),  is  one  long  lament  over  the  evils  of  his  time.  His  works  abound 
In  expressions  of  his  gloom  in  the  midst  of  the  aboriginal  chaos. 

235 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

For  these  reasons,  Bede  says,  the  religious  habit  was 
at  that  time  in  great  veneration,  so  that  wheresoever  any 
clergyman  or  monk  happened  to  come  he  was  joyfully 
received  by  all  persons  as  the  servant  of  God;  if  they 
should  meet  him  upon  the  way  they  ran  to  him,  and,  bow- 
ing, were  glad  to  be  signed  with  his  hand  or  blessed  with 
his  voice.  Great  attention  was  also  paid  to  their  exhorta- 
tions; and  on  Sundays  they  flocked  eagerly  to  the  church 
or  the  monasteries,  not  to  feed  their  bodies,  but  to  hear 
the  word  of  God ;  and  if  any  priest  happened  to  come  into 
a  village  the  inhabitants  flocked  together  to  hear  from 
him  the  word  of  life;  for  the  priests  and  clergymen  went 
into  the  village  on  no  other  account  than  to  preach,  bap- 
tize, visit  the  sick,  and  to  take  care  of  souls;  they  were 
so  free  from  worldly  avarice  that  none  of  them  received 
lands  and  possessions  for  building  monasteries  unless  they 
were  compelled  to  do  so  by  the  temporal  authorities; 
which  custom  was  for  some  time  after  observed  in  all  the 
churches  of  the  Northumbrians/ 

4.  CoLMAN  Founds  "Mayo  of  the  Saxons" 

Colman  by  no  means  lost  his  interest  in  the  English 
after  leaving  his  English  see.  He  dwelt  in  northern 
Britain  for  a  couple  of  years  and  established  some 
churches  there.  He  then  went  over  to  Ireland  with  the 
English  disciples  who  had  remained  faithful  to  him  and 
settled  in  668  at  Inisboffin  in  the  principality  of  northern 
Hy-Fiachra  in  the  division  now  called  county  Mayo. 
Less  than  three  years  later  he  established  in  Mayo  the 
abbey  exclusively  for  the  accommodation  of  English  stu- 
dents which  subsequently  attained  celebrity  as  "Mayo  of 
the  Saxons." 

iHIst.   Eccl.  Ill,  XXVI. 

236 


Fruits  of  the   Irish  Apostolate  in   England 

These  bald  facts  Bede  invests  with  an  air  of  picturesque- 
ness  and  adds  certain  details.  Colman,  he  says,  departing 
from  Britain,  took  with  him  all  the  Irish  he  had  assem- 
bled in  the  isle  of  Lindisfarne,  and  also  about  thirty  of 
the  English  nation,  who  had  been  all  instructed  in  the 
monastic  life;  and  leaving  some  brothers  in  his  church, 
he  repaired  first  to  the  isle  of  Hii  (lona)  whence  he 
had  been  sent  to  preach  to  the  English  nation.  After- 
wards he  retired  to  a  small  Irish  island  of  Inisboffin  or, 
as  Bede  calls  it,  Inisbofinde,  the  Island  of  the  White 
Heifer.  Arriving  there,  Bede  tells  us,  he  built  a  monastery 
and  placed  in  it  the  monks  he  had  brought  of  both  nations ; 
who,  not  agreeing  among  themselves,  by  reason  of  the 
Irish  in  the  summer  season,  when  the  harvest  was  to  be 
brought  in,  leaving  the  monastery  wandered  about 
through  places  with  which  they  were  acquainted;  but 
returned  again  the  next  winter,  and  would  have  what 
the  English  had  provided  to  be  in  common.  Colman 
sought  to  put  an  end  to  this  dissension  and,  traveling 
about  far  and  near,  he  found  a  place  in  the  island  of 
Ireland  fit  to  build  a  monastery,  which,  says  Bede,  in 
the  Irish  language  is  called  Mageo,  and  bought  a  small 
part  of  it  of  the  earl  to  whom  it  belonged  to  build  his 
monastery  thereon;  upon  condition  that  the  monks  resid- 
ing there  should  pray  to  our  Lord  for  him  who  had  let 
them  have  the  place.  Then  building  a  monastery  with 
the  assistance  of  the  earl  and  all  the  neighbors,  he  placed 
the  English  there,  leaving  the  Irish  in  the  aforesaid  island. 

Bede  tells  us  that  this  monastery  continued  up  to  his 
day  possest  by  the  English  inhabitants;  being  the  same 
that,  grown  up  from  small  beginning  to  be  very  large, 
was  generally  called  Mageo;  and  as  all  things  had  long 
before  been  brought  under  a  better  method  (referring  to 

^Z7 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

Easter  controversy)  it  contained  an  exemplary  society 
of  monks,  who  were  gathered  there  from  the  province  of 
the  English,  and  lived  by  the  labor  of  their  hands,  after 
the  example  of  the  venerable  fathers  under  a  rule  and  a 
canonical  abbot  in  much  continency  and  singleness  of 
life.^ 

Meanwhile  the  good  work  was  going  on  in  other  parts 
of  Ireland.  At  the  date  of  the  pestilence  of  664,  says 
Bede,  "many  of  the  nobility  and  of  the  lower  ranks  of 
the  English  nation  were  there  (in  Ireland)  at  that  time, 
who,  in  the  days  of  Bishops  Finan  and  Colman,  forsak- 
ing their  native  isle,  retired  thither,  either  for  the  sake 
of  divine  studies  or  of  a  more  continent  life;  and  some 
of  them  presently  devoted  themselves  to  the  monastic 
life,  others  chose  rather  to  apply  themselves  to  study, 
going  about  from  one  master's  cell  to  another.  The 
Irish  willingly  received  them  all  and  took  care  to  sup- 
ply them  with  food  as  also  to  furnish  them  with  books 
to  read  and  their  teaching  gratis."^ 

These  words  are  on  many  grounds  well  worthy  of 
meditation  by  Englishmen. 

iHist.  Eccl.  IV,  IV. 

2  Hist.  Eccl.  Ill,  XXVII,  Giles,  one  of  the  first  translators  of  Bede,  ap- 
pends the  following  curious  note  to  this  revealing  passage.  "The  reader, 
who  has  heard  much  of  the  early  civilization  of  Ireland,  will  remember  that 
the  description  given  in  the  text  applied  to  a  period  no  earlier  than  the 
seventh  century"  (Bede,  Eccl.  Hist.,  p.  163). 


238 


CHAPTER  XIX 

EXTENDING    OPERATIONS    OVER 
ALL    ENGLAND 

I.  Sentiment  of  Idolatry  for  Ireland  and  the  Irish.  2.  Among  the 
East  Anglians  and  West  Saxons.  3.  Irish  Channels  of  Entry  into 
Britain.  4.  Fursa  of  the  Visions.  5.  Diuma,  Chad,  and  Ceallach  in 
Mercia. 

I .   Sentiment  of  Idolatry  for  Ireland  and  the  Irish 

IT  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  Anglo-Saxons 
during  all  this  period  looked  on  the  Irish  with  a 
feeling  akin  to  idolatry  and  the  sentiment  prevailed 
among  all  classes,  learned  and  unlearned,  rich  and  poor, 
from  the  king  and  bishop  to  the  meanest  churl.  To  them 
all  Ireland  was  a  land  of  enchantment  in  which  nothing 
foul  could  live,  while  articles  brought  out  of  Ireland 
carried  healing  powers  with  them. 

The  words  of  Bede  are  eloquent  on  this  point.  Ireland, 
he  says,  was  a  land  ''for  wholesomeness  and  serenity  of 
climate  far  surpassing  Britain,"  a  land  so  benign  that 
"no  reptiles  are  found  there  and  no  snake  can  live  there, 
for  tho  often  carried  thither  out  of  Britain,  as  soon  as 
the  ship  comes  near  the  shore  and  the  scent  of  the  air 
reaches  them,  they  die."  So  wonderful  a  land  was  Ireland 
that  all  things  in  the  land  or  brought  out  of  it  served  as  a 
charm  against  poison.  The  island  was  a  land  "flowing 
with  milk  and  honey,"  full  of  vines,  fish,  fowl,  deer  and 
goats.  The  tradition  was  widespread.*  To  King  Aldfrid, 
who  knew  Ireland  from  study  and  travel,  it  was  "Inisfail, 
the  Fair"  too  noble  and  nearly  celestial  to  be  honored  in 

iHist.  Eccl.  I,  I. 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

prose,  to  which  poetry  in  the  meter  of  the  ancients  could 
alone  do  justice.  To  William  of  Malmesbury  centuries 
later  the  Irish  were  "a  race  in  genuine  simplicity  and 
guiltless  of  every  crime." 

We  can  measure  the  depth  of  the  veneration  then  felt 
by  the  Englishman  for  everything  Irish  by  the  curious 
superstitions  which  the  sentiment  inspired.  Thus  even 
in  Bede,  much  the  wisest  and  best  informed  of  his  nation, 
we  find  it  taking  the  form  of  a  belief  that  even  the  very 
soil  on  articles  issuing  from  Ireland  had  a  virtue  which 
made  it  an  antidote  against  disease:  "In  short  we  have 
known  that  when  some  persons  have  been  bitten  by  ser- 
pents the  scrapings  of  leaves  of  books  that  were  brought 
out  of  Ireland  being  put  into  water  and  given  them  to 
drink  have  immediately  expelled  the  spreading  poison 
and  assuaged  the  swelling."^  Whatever  other  effect  the 
Synod  of  Whitby  had,  it  clearly  did  not  diminish  the 
respect  entertained  by  the  English  for  everything  Irish. 
This  English  sentiment  of  worship  in  respect  to  Ireland 
did  much  to  keep  peace  and  friendship  between  the  two 
countries  unruffled  during  the  Anglo-Saxon  period  when 
the  aborigines  of  the  Heptarchy  were  incessantly  assault- 
ing each  other.  Under  Ecgfrid  occurred  an  insignificant 
raid  on  the  Irish  coast,  which  Bede  records  with  horror 
and  lamentation.  Alcuin,  in  company  with  Bede,  takes 
note  of  the  fact  of  Irish  benevolence  towards  the  English 
in  that  epoch  of  their  feebleness  and  distraction,  which 
made  them  an  easy  prey  to  all  who  attacked  them.^ 

2.  Among  the  East  Anglians  and  West  Saxons 

Meanwhile  Sigebert,  king  of  the  East  Angles,  who  had 
lived  in  banishment  in  France,  being  desirous  of  imitating 

1  Hist.  Eccl.  I,  I. 

2  "Scotorum  gens  Anglis  semper  arnica"  (Probenius  edition,  II,  250,  vers. 
839). 

240 


Extending  Operations  Over  All   England 

the  educational  institutions  he  had  seen  in  that  country, 
set  up  a  school  for  youth  to  be  instructed  in  literature 
and  was  assisted  therein  by  Bishop  Felix,  who  came  to 
him  from  Kent  and  who  furnished  him  with  masters  and 
teachers  after  the  manner  of  the  country. 

The  only  schools  of  any  account  in  France  at  that 
period  were  the  Irish  foundations  of  Columbanus  and 
his  disciples,  and  it  was  doubtless  in  one  of  these  that 
Sigebert  had  studied.  Bishop  Felix,  who  presided  over 
the  see  of  East  Anglia  for  seventeen  years,  appears  to 
have  been  a  Burgundian  and  very  probably  graduated 
from  one  of  Columbanus's  Burgundian  foundations, 
Luxeuil,  Annegray,  Remiremont  or  Fontains.  Already 
the  disciples  of  Columbanus  were  active  in  Picardy,  estab- 
lishing monasteries  and  schools,  and  doubtless  some  of 
them  crossed  the  channel  into  England.  From  them  the 
masters  and  teachers  of  Felix  were  very  probably  drawn. 
It  was  while  Sigebert  governed  the  kingdom  that  Fursey 
and  his  associates  came  out  of  Ireland  into  East  Anglia. 
His  honorable  reception  by  the  king  and  subsequent  in- 
fluence in  the  province  were,  it  may  be  inferred,  due  in 
part  to  the  king's  friendship  with  his  Irish  instructors  in 
Gaul.  Felixstowe  in  Suffolk  is  named  after  this  Felix. 
After  his  death  his  deacon  Thomas  was  consecrated  by 
Honorius  as  bishop.  The  West  Saxons,  formerly  called 
Gewissae,  Bede  tells  us,  received  the  word  of  God  by  the 
preaching  of  Bishop  Birinus,  and  of  his  successors  Agil- 
bert  and  Eleutherius.  Birinus  came  into  Britain  in  the 
reign  of  Cynegils  by  the  advice  of  Pope  Honorius,  hav- 
ing promised  in  his  presence  that  he  would  sow  the  holy 
faith  in  the  inner  parts  beyond  the  dominions  of  the 
English  where  no  other  preacher  had  been  before  him. 
Hereupon  he  received  the  episcopal  consecration  from 

17  241 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

Asterius,  bishop  of  Genoa;  but  on  his  arrival  in  Britain 
he  entered  first  the  nation  of  the  Gewissae  and,  finding 
all  there  most  confirmed  pagans,  he  thought  it  better 
to  preach  the  word  of  God  there,  then  to  proceed  further 
to  seek  for  others  to  preach  to.  Now  as  he  preached  in 
the  aforesaid  province  it  happened  that  the  king  himself, 
having  been  catechized,  was  baptized  together  with  his 
people,  and  Oswald,  the  most  holy  and  victorious  king 
of  the  Northumbrians,  being  present,  received  him  as 
he  came  forth  from  baptism  and  by  an  alliance  first 
adopted  him  thus  regenerated  for  his  son,  and  then  took 
his  daughter  in  marriage.  The  two  kings  gave  to  the 
bishop  the  city  called  Dorcic  there  to  settle  his  episcopal 
see;  where,  having  built  and  consecrated  churches  and  by 
his  labor  called  many  to  God,  he  departed  this  life  and 
was  buried  in  the  same  city;  but  many  years  after,  when 
Hedda  was  bishop,  he  was  translated  thence  to  the  city 
of  Winchester  and  laid  in  the  church  of  the  blessed  apos- 
tles, Peter  and  Paul/ 

This  Birinus  appears  to  have  been  an  Irishman,  who 
had  passed  a  number  of  years  on  the  Continent.  Birinus 
would  seem  to  be  a  Romanized  form  of  the  Irish  name 
Brain,  which  is  pronounced  and  usually  Anglicized 
Byrne,  Burn,  or  Byron. 

Birinus  may  have  been  associated,  as  Bishop  Forbes  of 
Brechin  suggests,  with  the  Irish  Scots  of  the  west  of  North 
Britain,  where  the  parish  of  Kilbirnie  is  suggestive  of  his 
name.  There  is  also  a  Kilbirnie  loch  in  the  parish  of 
Beith;  there  is  a  parish  of  Dumbarney  in  Strathearn,  and 
his  name  may  also  be  preserved  in  the  spur  of  the  Chil- 
terns,  called  Berin's  Hill. 

Birinus  was  not  succeeded  by  an  Irishman,  but  he  was 

iHist.  Eccl.  Ill,  VII. 

242 


Extending  Operations  Over  All   England 

succeeded,  as  Bede  tells  us,  by  one  who  had  been  trained 
in  Ireland.  This  was  the  Frank,  Agilbert,  who  figured 
at  Whitby  in  the  Paschal  controversy.  The  son  of 
Cynegils,  Cojnwalch,  had  refused  Christianity  at  the 
hands  of  Birinus  and  was  banished  to  East  Anglia  where 
he  got  the  faith  in  due  time.  Bede  says:  "But  when 
Cornwalch  was  to  his  kingdom  there  came  into  that 
province  out  of  Ireland  a  certain  bishop  called  Agilbert, 
by  nation  a  Frank,  who  had  lived  a  long  time  in  Ireland 
for  the  purpose  of  reading  the  scriptures.  This  bishop 
came  of  his  own  accord  to  serve  this  king  and  to  preach 
to  him  the  word  of  life.  The  king,  observing  his  erudi- 
tion and  industry,  desired  him  to  accept  an  episcopal  see 
and  stay  there  as  his  bishop.  Agilbert  complied  with  the 
prince's  request  and  presided  over  those  people  many 
years.  At  length  the  king,  who  understood  none  but  the 
language  of  the  Saxons,  grown  weary  of  the  bishop's 
barbarous  tongue,  brought  to  the  province  another  bishop 
of  his  own  nation,  whose  name  was  Wini,  who  had  been 
ordained  in  France."^  Bede's  use  of  the  word  ''barbar- 
ous"  here  is  significant  and  somewhat  amusing.  We  are 
to  assume  that  he  is  using  it  in  the  sense  of  "foreign,"  as 
on  other  occasions,  or  is  reproducing  the  standpoint  of 
some  other  Latin  writer.  Even  the  Frankish  speech  must 
at  that  time  have  shown  greater  development  than  the 
dialect  of  the  West  Saxons,  which  Agilbert,  tho  many 
years  in  the  country,  had  disdained  to  learn. 

3.   Irish  Channels  of  Entry  into  Britain 

While  Aidan  and  his  associates  were  laboring  in 
Northumbria  and  Mercia,  Fursa  and  his  disciples  were 
laying  their  foundations  in  East  Anglia  and  Dicuil  was 

1  Hist.  Keel.  Ill,  VII. 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

preaching  among  the  Saxons  of  the  South.  Only  a  few- 
years  later  we  find  the  accomplished  Maeldubh,  or  Mael- 
duf,  dispensing  lore  to  the  West  Saxon  youth  in  an  Irish 
foundation,  round  which  was  to  rise  a  cathedral  and 
town  which  were  to  carry  his  name  to  future  ages.  Thus 
during  the  seventh  century  in  the  four  corners  of  England, 
in  the  south  and  in  the  north,  in  the  west  and  in  the  east, 
Irish  missionaries  were  bringing  the  blessings  of  learning 
and  religion  to  the  English  heathen.  We  are  not  to  sup- 
pose that  the  Irish  teachers  whose  names  have  come  down 
to  us  were  alone  in  their  work.  Maelduf  was  not  the 
only  Irish  missionary  and  scholar  established  at  Malmes- 
bury.  He  was  undoubtedly  the  chief  of  the  learned  com- 
pany or  he  would  not  have  had  the  distinction  of  having 
his  name  perpetuated  in  that  of  the  town  which  he  made 
the  scene  of  his  labors  and  of  which  he  may  be  called  the 
founder  and  apostle.  Thus  while  Wessex  was  temporarily 
won  by  Birinus,  its  complete  conversion  as  well  as  the 
winning  of  central  Britain,  the  reconquest  of  Essex,  and 
the  first  evangelization  of  the  wild  South  Saxons,  were 
the  work  of  other  Irishmen. 

Not  only  through  the  North  did  the  Irish  teachers 
descend  on  Britain,  they  entered  it  from  several  direc- 
tions, some  to  pass  through  it  as  travelers  on  their  way  to 
Rome  and  Palestine,  others  to  preach  and  found  schools 
in  the  island.  The  journey  of  Fursa  of  the  Visions,  who 
chose  East  Anglia  as  the  scene  of  his  labors,  appears  to 
have  taken  the  route  through  what  is  now  South  Wales. 
Fursa  was  accompanied  not  only  by  his  brothers  Foillan 
and  Ultan,  two  remarkable  men,  almost  the  equals  of  their 
brother  in  celebrity,  but  by  a  band  of  other  Irish  monks, 
Gobhan,  or  Gobain,  and  Dicuil  among  them,  at  least  half 
a  dozen  of  whom  later  won  their  laurels  and  have  since 

244 


Extending  Operations  Over  All   England 

been  held  in  veneration  in  France.  Their  journey  and 
reception  were  felicitous,  "Landing  upon  foreign 
shores,"  says  the  old  chronicle,  "Fursa  and  his  companions 
are  borne  through  Britain  to  Saxony  (i.  e.,  East  Anglia), 
where,  being  honorably  received  by  King  Sigebert  at 
Burghcastle,  he  softened  the  hearts  of  the  barbarians."* 

Fursa  arrived  in  East  Anglia  contemporaneously  with 
the  arrival  of  Aidan  in  Northumbria,  and  Sigebert,  ruler 
of  the  Angles  of  that  region,  put  at  the  disposal  of  the 
distinguished  Irishman  a  tract  of  land  at  Cnobheresburg. 
There  Fursa  and  his  associates  built  a  monastery  in  the 
Irish  fashion  within  the  enclosure  of  a  Roman  fort — 
Burghcastle  in  Suffolk — surrounded  by  woods  and  over- 
looking the  sea.  Using  this  place  as  headquarters  the 
Irish  missionaries  labored  for  years  converting  and 
instructing  the  natives.^ 

Tribal  wars  then  rent  the  population  of  East  Anglia 
and  left  them  little  leisure  or  disposition  to  improve  their 
minds  or  manners,  or  to  listen  to  the  words  of  religion. 
But  the  indefatigable  and  lionhearted  Irishmen  had  a  way 
of  making  most  of  the  least  hopeful  material.  Combin- 
ing firmness  with  kindness,  they  gradually  brought  the 
aborigines  to  reason  and  put  them  through  their  first  paces 
in  the  direction  of  ordered  living  and  moral  restraint. 
Sigebert  was  renewed  in  his  fervor  by  Fursa.  The  devoted 
Irishman  labored  without  pause  except  for  the  interval 
of  one  year  of  retirement  and  did  not  abandon  his  task 
till  tribal  warfare  growing  ever  more  widespread  made 
it  impossible  to  continue,  obliging  him  to  transfer  the 
theater  of  his  operations  to  Gaul,  after  an  apostolate  in 
England  of  about  fifteen  years.^ 


iVita  S.  Fursae. 

2  Hist.  Eccl.   III.  XIX. 

3  Hist.  Eccl.   Ill,  XIX. 


245 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

4.    FURSA  OF  THE  VISIONS 

Bede  describes  Fursa  as  a  holy  man,  renowned  both 
for  his  words  and  actions,  and  remarkable  for  singular 
virtues,  being  desirous  of  living  a  stranger  for  our  Lord 
wherever  an  opportunity  should  offer.  Among  the  East 
Angles  he  performed  his  usual  employment  of  preaching 
the  gospel  and  by  the  example  of  his  virtue  and  the  effi- 
ciency of  his  discourse  he  converted  many  unbelievers  to 
Christ  and  confirmed  in  his  faith  and  love  those  that 
already  believed. 

Here  he  fell  into  some  infirmity  of  body  and  was 
thought  worthy,  continues  Bede,  to  see  a  vision  of  God; 
in  which  he  was  admonished  diligently  to  proceed  in  the 
ministry  of  the  word  he  had  undertaken  and  indef  atigably 
to  continue  his  usual  watching  and  prayers;  inasmuch  as 
his  end  was  certain  but  the  hour  of  it  would  be  uncertain. 
Being  confirmed  by  this  vision,  Fursa  applied  himself 
with  all  speed  to  build  a  monastery  on  the  ground  which 
had  been  given  him  by  King  Sigebert  and  to  establish 
regular  discipline  therein.  This  monastery  was  pleas- 
antly situated  in  the  woods  and  with  the  sea  not  far  ofif; 
afterwards  Anna,  king  of  that  province,  and  the  nobility 
embellished  it  with  more  stately  buildings  and  donations. 

Fursa  was  of  noble  Irish  blood,  says  Bede,  but  much 
more  noble  in  mind  than  in  birth.  From  his  boyish  years 
he  had  particularly  applied  himself  to  reading  sacred 
books  and  following  monastic  discipline,  and  he  carefully 
practised  all  he  learned  was  to  be  done.  In  short  he  built 
himself  a  monastery  wherein  he  might  with  more  freedom 
indulge  in  his  heavenly  studies.  There  falling  sick,  as 
the  book  about  his  life  informs  us,  says  Bede,  he  fell  into 
a  trance  and,  quitting  his  body  from  the  evening  till  the 
cock  crowed,  he  was  found  worthy  to  behold  the  choir  of 

246 


Extending  Operations  Over  All   England 

angels  and  to  hear  the  praises  which  are  sung  in  heaven. 
Bede  then  goes  on  to  tell  us  concerning  what  Fursa  saw 
and  heard  in  the  vision,  the  accounts  of  which  later  became 
so  celebrated. 

We  are  told  that  Fursa,  after  building  his  monastery  in 
East  Anglia  and  preaching  with  much  success,  became 
desirous  of  ridding  himself  of  all  business  of  the  world,  and 
even  of  the  monastery  itself,  and  forthwith  left  the  same 
and  the  care  of  souls  to  his  brother  Foillan  and  the  priests 
Cobham  and  Dicuil  and,  being  himself  free  from  all 
that  was  worldly,  resolved  to  end  his  life  as  a  hermit. 
He  had  another  brother  called  Ultan,  who,  after  a  long 
monastical  probation,  had  also  adopted  the  life  of  an 
anchorite.  Repairing  all  alone  to  him,  he  lived  a  whole 
year  with  him  in  continence  and  prayer  and  labored  daily 
with  his  hands.  Afterwards  seeing  the  province  of  East 
Anglia  in  confusion  by  the  irruption  of  the  pagan  Mer- 
cians under  Penda,  who  slew  King  Sigebert  and  slaugh- 
tered his  army,  and  presaging  that  the  monasteries  would 
be  also  in  danger,  Fursa  left  all  things  in  order  and  sailed 
over  to  France,  and,  being  there  honorably  entertained  by 
Clovis,  king  of  the  Franks,  accomplished  a  great  work. 
The  facts  related  concerning  Fursa,  his  work  and  visions, 
Bede  tells  us,  he  found  in  a  little  book  about  his  life,  a 
book  he  advises  everybody  to  read  believing  that  much 
spiritual  profit  would  be  thereby  derived.^ 

When  Fursa  arrived  in  East  Anglia,  Algeis,  with  Cor- 
bican,  and  his  servant  Rodalgus,  went  on  to  Corbei  and 
thence  to  Laon,  while  Foillan,  Ultan,  Gobain,  Decuil, 
Etto  and  Madelgisilus  remained  behind  with  Fursa. 
They  all  appear  in  France  later  on,  and  two  of  them  gave 
their  names  to  French  localities,  St.  Algise  and  St.  Gobain 

1  Hist.  Eccl.  Ill,  XIX.     The  life  of  Fursa  to  which  Bede  refers  is  extant. 

247 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

— the  forest  figured  much  in  dispatches  during  the  recent 
great  war.  Fursa  left  his  girdle  at  Burghcastle  and 
this  the  people  afterwards  lovingly  covered  with  gold  and 
jealously  preserved. 

5.  DiUMA,  Chad^  and  Ceallach  in  Mercia 

Meanwhile  in  Mercia  and  among  the  Mid-Angles 
Diuma,  Chad,  Ceadda,  Ceallach  and  their  associates  were 
duplicating  the  work  of  Aidan,  Finan  and  Colman  in 
the  North  and  Fursa  and  Dicuil  in  the  South  and  East. 
Diuma  was  the  Irish  priest  who  was  made  bishop  of  the 
Mid-Angles  by  Finan.  His  associates  were  either  Irish 
or  had  been  educated  in  Ireland.  The  nationality  of 
Chad  and  his  three  brothers  Ceada,  Cynebil  and  Caelin, 
has  been  the  subject  of  dispute.  Bede  describes  them  as 
Northumbrian;  other  writers  declare  them  to  have  been 
Irish.  They  had  all  however  been  educated  in  Ireland; 
they  may  have  been  among  the  twelve  boys  of  Aidan; 
and  they  showed  their  training  in  strenuous  emulation  of 
their  great  Irish  exemplar.  Diuma,  who  was  bishop  both 
of  Mercia  and  the  Middle  Angles,  was  succeeded,  as  has 
been  noted,  by  his  countryman,  Ceallach,  who  was  in  turn 
succeeded  by  Trumhere,  an  Angle  or  Saxon  educated  by 
the  Irish.  Trumhere  founded  a  monastery  in  Gethlingen 
(Gilling)  near  Richmond. 

Chad,  says  Bede,  "was  one  of  the  disciples  of  Aidan 
and  endeavored  to  instruct  his  people  by  the  same  actions 
and  behavior  according  to  his  and  his  brother  Cedd's 
example.  Wilfrid  also  being  made  a  bishop  came  into 
Britain  and  in  like  manner  by  his  doctrine  brought  into 
the  English  church  many  rules  of  Catholic  observance. 
Whence  it  followed  that  the  Catholic  institutions  daily 
gained  strength  and  all  the  Irish  that  dwelt  in  England 

248 


Extending  Operations  Over  All   England 

either  conformed  to  these  or  returned   into  their  own 
country."^ 

Ceadda  built  a  monastery  at  Talburgh,  or  Tilbury,  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Thames.  Chad  founded  Lestingham 
near  Whitby  and  Itanchester,  now  Froshwell,  in  Essex. 
His  celebrity  is  founded  on  his  work  as  bishop  of  the 
extensive  diocese  of  Mercia  of  which  Finan  fixed  the  see 
at  Lichfield,  so  called  in  one  view  from  the  number  of 
martyrs  buried  there  under  Maximinanus  Herudeus,  and, 
in  another,  from  the  marshy  nature  of  the  surrounding 
country.  Bede  assures  us  that  Chad  zealously  devoted 
himself  to  the  laborious  functions  of  his  charge,  visiting 
his  diocese  on  foot,  preaching  the  gospel,  seeking  out  the 
poorest  and  most  abandoned  natives  in  the  meanest  hovels 
that  he  might  instruct  them.  Like  many  of  the  Irish  saints 
his  name  became  associated  with  wells  and  he  became  in 
England  the  patron  saint  of  medieval  springs.  Around  his 
resting  place  arose  the  cathedral  and  city  of  Lichfield. 

1  Hist.  Eccl.  Ill,  XXVIII. 


24Q 


CHAPTER  XX 

CENTERS  OF  IRISH  INFLUENCE  IN  ENGLAND 

I.  Maelduf,  Founder  of  Malmesbury,  and  Other  Irishmen  in  Wessex. 
2.  Founders  of  Abingdon,  Chichester,  and  Lincoln.  3.  Aldhelm 
and  English  Students  in  Ireland.  4.  Correspondence  between 
Aldhelm  and  Cellan. 

I.   Maelduf,  Founder  of  Malmesbury,  and  Other 
Irishmen  in  Wessex 

IN  the  meantime  among  the  West  Saxons,  Maeldubh, 
or  Maelduf,  "eruditione  philosophus,  professione 
monachus,"  as  he  is  described  by  William  of  Malmes- 
bury— had  established  the  monastery  and  school  of  which 
Aldhelm,  later  Bishop  of  Sherborne,  was  to  be  the  chief 
ornament.  It  was  probably  after  the  battle  of  Bradford- 
on-Avon  in  652  that  Maelduf,  whom  Camden  describes 
as  an  Irish  Scot,  settled  in  the  forest  tract  that  had  been 
torn  from  the  Britons  and  that  had  borne  the  name  of 
Ingelborne  before  it  bore  his  own.  Dependencies  in 
course  of  time  branched  forth  at  Wareham,  on  the  south 
coast  near  Poole,  Bradford-on-Avon,  Frome,  on  the  banks 
of  the  little  river  of  that  name,  and  Sherborne.  The 
churches  raised  at  these  spots  were  the  first  instances  of 
building  in  Wessex.  At  Bradford-on-Avon  a  replica  of 
one  of  the  little  stone  Irish  churches,  dating  from  the 
earliest  days  of  Christianity,  is  still  to  be  seen  incorporated 
as  chancel  in  one  of  larger  plans,  the  oldest  ecclesiastical 
edifice  in  England.  William  of  Malmesbury,  Roger 
de  Hoveden  and  others  refer  to  Maelduf's  work  and 
call  Malmesbury  "the  city  of  Maidulph." 

250 


Centers  of  Irish  Influence  in  England 

William  of  Malmesbury  quotes  a  deed,  dated  672,  by 
which  (Bishop)  Leutherius  gave  "that  portion  of  land 
called  Maidulfesburgh"  to  Aldhelm,  the  priest.  Aldhelm, 
the  deed  says,  "from  his  earliest  infancy  and  first  initia- 
tion in  the  study  of  learning,  has  been  instructed  in  the 
liberal  arts  and  passed  his  days  nurtured  in  the  bosom 
of  holy  mother  church."  This  refers  to  his  upbringing 
by  Maelduf  and  his  companions.  Maelduf  was  a  figure 
in  the  continual  stream  of  Irish  teachers  pouring  through 
Bristol,  Malmesbury  and  Glastonbury,  and  spreading 
throughout  South  Britain  parallel  to  those  other  streams 
that  found  their  way  through  Chester,  Cumberland,  and 
over  the  Tweed,  into  northern  and  midland  England. 

Exeter,  or  Eaxeceaster,  where  Boniface  was  educated, 
was  probably  an  Irish  foundation.  It  could  not  very 
well  have  been  a  West  Saxon  foundation — the  West 
Saxons  were  not  then  sufficiently  advanced — and  it  was 
in  what  had  long  been  distinctly  Brito-Irish  territory. 
Hardly  anything  is  known  of  it  beyond  the  fact  that  it 
was  the  seminary  in  which  Boniface  spent  his  youth. 
Elsewhere  evidence  is  given  in  support  of  the  view  that 
Boniface  was  born  of  Irish  parents  in  the  Irish  colony 
of  Britain. 

Daniel,  or  Danihel,  bishop  of  Winchester,  who  corre- 
sponded with  Boniface  when  the  latter  was  in  Germany, 
appears  from  his  name  to  have  been  an  Irishman  and,  like 
Boniface,  probably  belonged  to  the  Brito-Irish  colony  into 
which  the  West  Saxons  had  driven  a  wedge.  The  prac- 
tice of  giving  children  Hebrew  names  like  Daniel  did 
not  come  into  vogue  in  Saxon  England  or  elsewhere  till 
long  after  this  period.  Thus  in  the  Domesday  Book  only 
two  Johns — the  name  is  derived  from  the  Hebrew 
Jehohannen,  "God  is  gracious" — are  listed  and  one  of 

251 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of   Britain 

them  is  a  Dane.  Yet  John  became  the  commonest  of  all 
names  under  later  usage  in  England  as  elsewhere.  The 
bishop's  name  was  probably  Domhnaill,  or  Donnell,  as 
it  is  written  in  its  Anglicized  form,  a  name  which  in 
modern  times  is  also  usually  corrupted,  in  Ireland,  when 
a  Christian  name,  into  Daniel. 

Daniel  was  one  of  the  persons  with  whom  Boniface  had 
entered  into  a  contract  for  mutual  intercessory  prayer.  In 
the  records  his  name  appears  as  Danihel,  which  resembles 
the  Irish  spelling.  He  was  an  intimate  friend  not  only 
of  Boniface,  but  of  Aldhelm  at  Sherborne  and  Bede  at 
Jarrow.  Daniel  like  Aldhelm  had  been  educated  under 
the  Irish  scholar  Maeldubh  or  Mailduf  at  Malmesbury 
and  it  was  to  Malmesbury  that  he  retired  in  his  old  age 
(he  died  in  745)  when  loss  of  sight  compelled  him  to 
resign  the  bishopric.  He  supplied  Bede  with  the  infor- 
mation regarding  the  church  history  of  the  south  and  west 
of  Britain.*  But  he  is  best  remembered  for  his  intimate 
connection  with  Boniface.  It  was  from  Daniel  that 
Boniface  received  commendatory  letters  when  he  started 
for  Rome  and  to  Daniel  he  continually  turned  for  counsel 
during  his  work  in  Germany.  Two  letters  of  the  bishop 
to  Boniface  are  preserved  and  give  an  admirable  im- 
pression of  his  piety  and  good  sense.^  In  the  second  of 
these  epistles,  which  was  written  after  his  loss  of  sight, 
Daniel  takes  a  touching  farewell  of  his  correspondent: 
"Farewell,  farewell,  thou  hundred-fold  dearest  one!" 
Daniel  made  pilgrimages  to  Rome  in  721  and  731  and 
assisted  at  the  consecration  of  Archbishop  Tatwine.  A 
vision  recorded  in  the  *'Monumenta  Moguntina"  No.  112 
perhaps  implies  that  he  was  considered  lacking  in  energy; 
nevertheless  it  would  follow  from  William  of  Malmes- 

1  See  Bede,  Hist.  Eccl.  Praef. 

2  See  Haddan  and  Stubbs,  "Councils,"  III,  304,  343. 

252 


Centers  of  Irish   Influence  in   England 

bury's  reference  to  a  certain  stream  in  which  Daniel  stood 
all  night  that  he  was  of  remarkable  austerity.^  Florence 
of  Worcester  and  others  have  references  to  him. 

The  Irish  continued  the  ruling  element  in  the  Devonian 
peninsula  and  in  what  is  now  Wales  to  the  seventh  and 
eighth  centuries.  Exeter  was  probably  the  scene  of  the 
labors  of  some  of  the  Irish  teachers  who  poured  through 
what  is  now  Bristol.  There  appear  to  have  been  many 
such  and  had  there  been  a  West  Saxon  Bede  doubtless  we 
would  be  in  possession  of  a  story  of  their  work  in  the 
south  similar  to  that  told  of  Aidan,  Finan,  Colman  and 
their  associates  and  successors  in  Northumbria. 

2.  Founders  of  Abingdon,  Chichester,  and  Lincoln 

Abingdon,  in  Berkshire,  originally  Abban-dun  or  Dun 
Abban,  has  its  name  derived  from  that  of  Abban,  an  Irish 
scholar,  who  founded  a  monastery  there  and  converted 
many.  He  was  a  hermit,  and  authorities  are  cited  con- 
cerning his  connection  with  the  place  by  Camden  who 
says  that  "in  course  of  time  that  monastery  rose  to  such 
magnificence  that  in  wealth  and  extent  it  was  hardly 
second  to  any  in  England." 

There  is  a  difference  of  opinion  between  Colgan  and 
Lanigan  in  regard  to  Abban's  work  in  England.  Colgan 
agrees  with  Camden  and  considers  that  Abban  labored  at 
Abingdon  and  lived  to  a  great  age.  Lanigan^  throws 
doubt  on  the  account  on  the  ground  that  in  Abban's  life- 
time the  district  continued  in  possession  of  the  pagan 
Saxons.  Kelly,^  rejects  the  objections  of  Lanigan  and 
propounds  the  view,  now  generally  accepted,  that  Abban 
was  actually  the  foster-father  of  the  town  and  the  original 

1  Gest.  Pont.  I,  357. 

2  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Ireland. 

3  Translator   of   Lynch's   "Cambrensis   Eversus." 

253 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

founder  of  the  monastic  establishment.  The  town,  which 
is  near  Oxford  on  the  Thames,  lay  well  within  the  orbit 
of  influence  of  the  southern  stream  of  Irish  missionary 
teachers,  travelers  and  merchants  that  flowed  in  and  out 
of  the  trading  port  of  Bristol  and  South  Wales.  In 
modern  times  Irish  fibulae  have  been  found  around 
Abingdon. 

According  to  the  Chronicle  of  Abingdon,  the  famous 
abbey  was  founded  in  the  first  year  of  the  reign  of 
Centwine,  who  was  the  leading  figure  in  Wessex  during 
the  period  when,  says  Bede,  "for  ten  years  after  the  death 
of  Coinwalch  there  was  anarchy  in  the  kingdom."  We 
read  in  the  Chronicle  that  during  the  reign  of  Centwine, 
who  is  thought  by  some  to  have  been  the  father  of  Aldhelm 
and  Bugga,  there  was  a  petty  prince  called  Cissa,  who 
ruled  over  Wiltshire  and  the  greater  part  of  Berkshire. 
He  had  a  local  bishop  with  a  see  at  Malmesbury,  but  his 
own  capital  city  was  Bedeeuwinde  (i.  e.,  Bedwyn,  in 
Wilts).  In  the  southern  part  of  the  town  he  built  a  castle 
which  from  him  was  called  Cyssebui.  He  had  a  nephew 
called  Hean,  a  rich,  powerful  and  religious  man  who  had 
a  pious  sister  called  Cilia.  When  Hean  one  day  heard 
the  preacher  say  in  church  that  it  was  easier  for  a  camel 
to  pass  through  the  eye  of  a  needle  than  for  a  rich  man  to 
enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven  he  began  to  despise  his  own 
wealth  and  to  turn  his  thoughts  to  heavenly  things. 
Thereupon  his  sister  Cilia  went  to  her  uncle  and  asked 
him  to  make  him  a  grant  of  land  where  he  could  build 
a  monastery.  To  this  Cissa  assented  and  discovered  in 
the  south  of  Oxfordshire  a  place  called  Abba's  Hill, 
where  it  was  reported  there  had  previously  been  a  small 
religious  establishment  and,  as  it  was  a  woody  district 
(the  Bagley  Wood  of  that  period),  he  proceeded  to  build 

254 


Centers  of  Irish   Influence  in   England 

a  monastery  there.  This  was  in  the  year  685.  The  new- 
foundation  was  endowed  with  much  land  and  money  by 
Cissa,  while  Hean  made  over  to  it  his  own  hereditary 
property.  The  founder  of  the  abbey  was  succeeded  as 
abbot  of  the  monastery  by  Conan,  a  distinctly  Irish  name, 
as  is  also  that  of  Hean.^  The  small  religious  establishment 
referred  to  was  possibly  that  of  Abban. 

Dicuil — the  name  appears  to  have  been  a  prevalent  one 
among  the  learned  Irish  of  that  age — founded  the  mon- 
astery of  Bosham  in  Sussex,  whence  issued  the  see  of 
Chichester.  Dicuil  had  with  him  five  or  six  brothers,  but 
for  some  reason  they  did  not  show  the  enterprising  spirit 
that  was  characteristic  of  other  missionary  Irishmen.  Bede 
says  the  native  South  Saxons  paid  little  attention  to  them. 
"There  was  among  them,"  he  writes,  "a  certain  monk  of 
the  Irish  nation,  whose  name  was  Dicuil,  who  had  a  very 
small  monastery  at  the  place  called  Bosanham,  encom- 
passed with  the  sea  and  woods,  and  in  it  five  or  six 
brothers,  who  served  our  Lord  in  poverty  and  humility; 
but  none  of  the  natives  cared  either  to  follow  their  course 
of  life  or  to  hear  their  preaching."^ 

The  founder  of  the  see  of  Lincolnshire  was  iEthelwine, 
brother  of  Alduini,  abbot  of  Partney,  and  of  the  abbess 
^dilhilda.  He  fixed  his  seat  in  679  at  Sidnaceaster,  a 
few  miles  from  Lincoln,  now  called  Stow,  where  in  later 
Saxon  times  a  stately  minster  arose  which  still  remains, 
the  finest  building  extant  of  Saxon  date  and  with  many 
Irish  features.  iEthelwine  and  his  brother  ^thelhun 
were  of  noble  birth  and  were  educated  in  Ireland.  Bede 
says  that  iEthelwine  having  been  well  instructed  returned 
from  Ireland  into  his  own  country  and  being  appointed 

1  Chronicle  of  Abingdon,  II,  268,  273. 

2  Hist.  Eccl.  IV.  XIII. 

255 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of   Britain 

bishop  governed  the  province  of  Lindissi  most  worthily 
for  a  long  time.^ 

3.  Aldhelm  and  English  Students  in  Ireland 

Evidence  has  already  been  given  of  the  extent  to  which 
the  English,  in  common  with  other  foreigners,  went  to 
Ireland  for  purposes  of  education.  By  the  time  of 
Aldhelm  the  habit  had  become  something  of  a  passion 
and  his  remarks  on  the  subject  are  curious.  In  a  letter 
to  Eadfrid,  later  bishop  of  Lindisfarne  (698-721),  just 
returned  from  Ireland  where  he  spent  six  years,  he  says 
in  his  flowery  way:  ^'We  have  heard  from  newsmongers 
that  you  have  arrived  safely  at  the  ambrosial  shores  of 
the  British  territory,  having  left  the  wintry  climes  and 
storms  of  the  island  of  Ireland,  where  for  a  triple  two 
years'  period  you  have  drawn  nourishment  from  the  udder 

of  wisdom  (uber  sophiae) Our  ears  have  been 

tingled  by  assertions  beyond  the  bounds  of  mere  rumor  of 
those  who  dwell  on  Irish  soil  with  whom  you  yourself 
have  lived,  assertions  like  peals  of  thunder  from  the  crash- 
ing clouds,  and  through  many  and  wide  stadia  of  the  land, 
the  opinion  spreads  and  grows  in  force."  He  then  goes 
on  to  remark  on  the  stream  of  scholars  crossing  and 
recrossing  the  sea  to  and  from  Ireland :  "The  coming  and 
going  of  those  who  pass  by  the  ship's  track,  the  whirlpools 
of  the  sea,  hence  and  thence,  hither  and  thither,  is  so 
frequent  that  it  resembles  some  brotherhood  of  bees, 
busily  storing  the  nectar  in  the  comb."^ 

Strange  bombast  this,  yet  Aldhelm  was  the  first  English- 
man to  cultivate  classical  letters  with  any  success.  His 
luxuriance  of  speech  is  the  evident  result  of  an  almost 
boyish  delight  in  his  new  found  knowledge  and  in  its 

iHist.  EccL  III,  XXVII. 

ZMigne,   LXXXIX.  Epistola  III.   col.   94. 

256 


Centers  of  Irish   Influence   in   England 

display.  The  chief  value  of  these  passages  is  the  light 
they  throw  on  Ireland's  preeminence  as  the  school  of  the 
West  in  that  period.  He  remarks  that  in  Ireland  English 
students  learned  not  only  the  arts  of  grammar  and 
geometry  but  also  physics  and  allegorical  and  tropological 
interpretations  of  scripture. 

In  another  letter  to  his  protege,  Winfrid  or  Wilfrid, 
the  companion  of  ^thelwald  with  whom  he  went  to  Ire- 
land Aldhelm,  like  some  later  people  on  the  Continent, 
gives  evidence  of  apprehension  respecting  the  danger  in 
the  philosophy  and  classical  learning  taught  in  Ireland 
as  well  as  in  the  vagaries  of  living  in  the  university  towns 
of  that  country.  In  this  he  says  that  he  had  heard  of  the 
intended  voyage  of  Winfrid  to  Ireland  in  pursuit  of 
knowledge  and  he  warns  him  against  the  perils  of  pagan 
philosophy  to  the  faith  and  especially  of  mythology. 
What  benefit,  he  asks,  can  orthodox  truth  derive  from  the 
studies  of  a  man  who  spends  his  strength  in  examining 
into  the  incests  of  the  impure  Proserpine,  the  adventures 
of  the  petulant  Hermione,  the  bacchanals  of  Lupercus,  or 
the  parasites  of  Priapus.  These  things  have  passed  away 
and  become  as  nothing  before  the  cross  victorious  over 
death.  He  also  counsels  him  against  keeping  loose  com- 
pany and  wearing  extravagant  dress.* 

Aldhelm  himself  claims  to  have  been  the  first  English- 
man to  practise  the  art  of  Latin  composition  in  prose  and 
verse.  **No  one,"  he  says,  "sprung  from  our  stock,  and 
born  of  German  blood,  has  before  our  mediocre  work 
done  this  kind  of  thing. "^  And  thus  he  applies  to  himself 
Vergil's  own  lines : 

Primus  ego  in  patriam  mecum  (modo  vita  supersit) 
Aonio  rediens  deducam  vertice  Musas 
Primus  Idumaeus  referam  tibi,  mantua  palmas. 

1  Giles,  Aldhelmi  Opera,  p.  377. 

2  Epist.  ad  Acircium,  ed.,  Giles,  327. 

^57 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

"His  language,"  says  Haddan,  "for  enigmatic  erudition, 
and  artificial  rhetoric  rivals  Armada,  and  Holophernes 
or  Euphues."^    Taine  calls  him  a  Latinized  Skald. 

Roger  has  noted  the  fact  that  the  inflation  and  grandilo- 
quence of  Aldhelm's  style  became  still  more  pronounced 
when  he  was  writing  either  to  Irishmen  or  to  men  educated 
in  Ireland.  In  view  of  Aldhelm's  naive  envy  of  the  fame 
of  the  Irish  schools  to  which  English  and  continental 
students  continued  to  stream  despite  the  presence  of 
Theodore  and  Hadrian  at  Canterbury,  his  motive  would 
seem  very  evident.  It  would  appear  that  he  wanted  to 
demonstrate,  as  Roger  notes,  that  one  was  quite  capable 
of  being  in  possession  of  a  beautiful.style  without  having 
to  go  to  Ireland  to  acquire  it.  Perhaps  also  he  considered 
the  school  which  produced  such  compositions  as  His- 
perica  Famina  a  fine  model  and  wanted  to  give  satisfac- 
tion to  those  who  were  among  its  admirers.  On  the  other 
hand,  "English  magnificence"  is  the  quality  of  Aldhelm's 
Latin  prose  and  verse  in  the  opinion  of  William  of 
Malmesbury.^ 

4.   Correspondence  Between  Aldhelm  and  Cellan 

There  is  in  existence  a  letter  written  to  Aldhelm  by 
Cellan,  the  Irish  abbot  of  Perrone,  the  successor  in  the 
monastery  to  Ultan,  the  brother  of  the  famed  Fursa.  The 
mere  correspondence  gives  us  a  pleasant  picture  of  the 
brotherhood  of  letters  then  existing,  in  which  the  inter- 
communication over  a  wide  area  was  conducted  by  such 
Irish  scholars  as  attended  Hadrian's  school  at  Canterbury, 
as  well  as  the  Englishmen  who  went  to  Ireland,  and  the 
Irishmen  who  traveled  from  one  country  to  another.  One 
of  Cellan's  letters,  which  is  signed  with  his  name,  is 

1  Remains,   267. 

zGesta  Pontiflcum,  V,  189, 

258 


Centers  of  Irish   Influence  in   England 

addrest  to  "My  Lord  Aldhelm,  the  Archimandrite  (i.  e., 
the  Abbot),  enriched  in  the  study  of  letters,  adorned  by 
honey-bearing  work  by  night,  who  in  a  marvelous  manner 
has  acquired  in  the  land  of  the  Saxons  that  which  some  in 
foreign  parts  hardly  obtain  by  dint  of  toilsome  labor. 
Cellanus,  born  in  the  island  of  Ireland,  dwelling  obscurely 
in  an  extreme  corner  of  the  land  of  the  Franks,  near  those 
of  a  famous  colony  of  Christ,  greeting  in  the  whole  and 
sure  Trinity."  Cellanus  then  proceeds  to  pay  Aldhelm 
some  compliments  and  inter  alia  tells  him  that  tho 
they  were  not  worthy  to  hear  him  at  home,  they  read  his 
finely  composed  works  painted  with  the  attractions  of 
various  flowers.  He  reports  how  he  had  heard  praises  of 
his  Latin  and  goes  on  to  say:  "If  you  would  refresh  the 
sad  heart  of  a  pilgrim,  send  him  some  small  discourses 
(sermunculos)  from  your  sweet  lips,  the  rills  derived 
from  which  pure  fountain  may  refresh  the  minds  of  many 
in  the  place  where  rest  the  holy  remains  of  the  Lord 
Fursa."* 

William  of  Malmesbury,  to  whom  we  are  indebted 
for  the  letter  of  Cellan  gives  us  only  one  clause  from 
Aldhelm's  reply,  which  is  not  illuminating.  "I  wonder," 
he  says,  "that  from  the  renowned  and  flower  bearing  fields 
of  the  Franks,  the  activity  of  your  fraternity  addresses 
such  a  poor  little  creature  (tantillum  homunculum)  as 
myself,  sprung  from  the  Saxon  race  and  cradled  in  my 
tender  years  under  a  northern  sky  (sub  Arctos  axe)." 

Another  letter  to  Aldhelm,  which  as  it  has  been  pre- 
served to  us  is  anonymous,  is  with  great  probability 
identified  as  written  by  Cellan.  In  this  letter  the  writer 
describes  himself  as  "an  Irishman  of  unknown  name," 
and  at  that  time  he  had  probably  not  yet  become  abbot 

1  Giles,  Aldhelmi  Opera,  331;  Bonif.  Ep.  4  (Mayor's  Bede,  p.  298). 

259 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

of  Perrone.  Giles/  and  Hole,^  both  identify  this  Irish- 
man with  Cellan,  and  Ludwig  Traube,  who  found  a 
number  of  Cellan's  Latin  verses  at  Florence,  makes  the 
authorship  almost  certain.'  The  letter  is  addrest  *'To 
the  Lord  Aldhelm,  holy  and  most  wise,  to  Christ  most 
dear;  an  Irishman  of  name  unknown  sends  greeting  in 
the  eternal  God."    It  then  continues: 

''Knowing  how  you  excel  in  intellect,  in  Roman  excel- 
lence, and  in  the  varied  flowers  of  letters  after  the  manner 
of  the  Greeks,  I  would  rather  learn  from  your  mouth,  the 
purest  fount  of  knowledge,  than  drink  from  any  other 
spring,  especially  from  the  turbid  master  (turbulento 
magistro  praesertim,  to  whom  Cellan  refers  is  not  appar- 
ent). I  beseech  you  to  take  me  and  teach  me,  because 
the  brightness  of  wisdom  shines  in  you  beyond  many 
lecturers,  and  you  understand  the  minds  of  foreigners  who 
desire  to  acquire  knowledge,  for  you  have  been  to  Rome, 
and  besides  you  were  yourself  taught  by  a  certain  holy 
man  of  our  race.  Let  this  serve  as  a  summary  of 
reasons  .  .  .  ."  the  upshot  being  that  the  writer  wanted 
to  borrow  a  certain  book,  the  letter  ending  with  a  sacred 
poem  of  twenty-one  lines. 

The  "holy  man  of  our  race"  who  taught  Aldhelm  was 
of  course  Maelduf  of  Malmesbury.  Another  teacher  of 
Aldhelm  was  Hadrian  at  Canterbury,  but  Aldhelm  was 
between  forty  and  fifty  before  he  met  Hadrian,  and  even 
at  Canterbury  was  in  the  society  of  Irish  scholars,  as  he 
himself  tells  us.  The  Irishmen  had  little  to  learn  either 
from  Theodore  or  Hadrian  and  they  appear  there  more  in 
the  character  of  controversialists  and  logicians,  already 
wielding  the  dialectical  method  for  which  they  were  to 

lAldhelmi  Opera,  331. 

2D.    C.    B.    i,    434. 

aperrona  Scotorum,  Abhandlungen  der  Bay.     Akad  (1900)  469-538. 

260 


Centers  of  Irish  Influence  in   England 

become  famous  on  the  Continent,  than  as  meek  learners. 
Doubtless  the  chief  attraction  to  the  Irishmen  in  Canter- 
bury was  the  opportunity  of  extending  their  knowledge  of 
Greek  of  which  they  were  almost  the  sole  representatives 
in  western  Europe.* 

1  William  of  Malmesbury  has  preserved  for  us  also  a  letter  written  by 
a  young  Irish  prince  named  Artuil  (he  is  called  Artwilius  in  the  manuscript) 
and  directed  to  Aldhelm,  in  which  he  requests  the  Englishman  to  polish  for 
him  his  first  literary  efforts,  "ut  perfecti  ingenii  lima  eraderetur  scabredo 
Scottica." 


261 


CHAPTER  XXI 
IRISH  TUTELAGE  OF  ENGLAND 

I.  Irish  Influence,  More  than  Roman,  Potent  Among  English.  2.  Theo- 
dore and  "Molossian  Hounds"  at  Canterbury.  3.  Irish  Plant  Arts 
and  Industries  in  England.  4.  By  the  Time  of  Bede  and  Alcuin. 
5.  Irish  Scholars  and  King  Alfrid.  6.  Irish  Literati  Before  and 
After  Dunstan. 

I.   Irish  Influence,  More  than  Roman,  Potent 
Among  English 

TO  some  it  has  appeared  that  the  Irish  tutelage  of 
England  came  to  an  end  with  the  Synod  of  Whitby 
and  the  withdrawal  of  Colman  and  his  associates. 
The  truth  is  that  Irish  preceptors  continued  their  work  in 
England  and  English  students  continued  to  go  to  school 
in  Ireland  almost  without  let-up  until  after  the  French 
conquest.  The  Irish  foundations  in  England,  swallowed 
up  one  after  another  by  the  engulfing  barbarism  with  its 
reiteration  of  sporadic  outbreaks,  in  the  intermittent 
periods  of  calm  saw  new  founders  amid  the  ruins  carrying 
on  in  the  face  of  heavy  discouragement  the  work  of 
regeneration.  The  influence  of  the  Irish  missionaries  over 
the  aborigines  of  the  country  continued  as  powerful  almost 
as  that  of  the  native  rulers.  The  Easter  question  had  only 
a  fraction  of  the  importance  that  has  been  attached  to  it. 
Ireland  outside  of  Columcille's  country,  as  Bede  observes 
and  as  the  Paschal  letter  of  Cummian^  bears  evidence, 
yielding  to  the  admonition  of  the  Apostolic  See,  had 
already  conformed  to  the  Roman  usage  and  canonical 

1  Migne  LXXXVII,  cols.   969,  978,   Epistola  de  controversia  paschali. 

262 


Irish  Tutelage  of  England 


custom  in  634  A.  D.,  thirty  years  before  the  Synod  of 
Whitby.  lona,  which  was  the  last  to  hold  out,  relinquished 
its  intransigeant  attitude  in  715.  Such  differences  of  view 
as  existed  moderated  but  little  the  amenability  of  the 
English  natives  to  Irish  exhortation.  Irishmen  following 
the  so-called  "Celtic"  usages  and  Irishmen  following  the 
Roman  usages  continued  therefore  to  carry  on  their  work 
before  and  after  uniformity  had  been  established  between 
the  two  islands. 

It  thus  becomes  evident  that  whatever  of  civilization 
the  English  made  their  own  from  the  period  of  the  fifth 
century  invasions  to  the  French  conquest  of  1066  was 
acquired  by  them  from  Irishmen  and  Irish  schools  outside 
of  the  small  territory  which  was  the  orbit  of  Augustine 
and  his  successors.  Even  in  the  small  kingdom  of  Kent 
the  harvest  was  more  apparent  than  real.  There  has  been 
much  exaggeration,  as  has  been  before  remarked,  about 
the  schools  supposed  to  have  been  introduced  by 
Augustine  and  his  monks.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  they  had  any  other  ideals  than  those  of  their  master, 
Pope  Gregory,  who,  we  know,  greatly  undervalued 
secular  learning  and  entirely  disapproved  of  the  clergy 
teaching  it.  His  extraordinary  letter  to  the  Bishop  of 
Vienne  is  eloquent  of  his  views  on  the  subject  and  even 
better  proof  of  his  prejudice  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that, 
despite  his  sojourn  at  Constantinople,  the  great  pope 
never  took  the  trouble  to  learn  Greek,  in  which  the  best 
thought  of  the  Old  World  was  enshrined  and  in  which 
nearly  all  the  theology  of  the  earlier  centuries  of  the 
Church  had  been  written.  We  may  be  sure  that  Gregory's 
influence  in  these  matters,  at  all  events  in  Italy,  was  wide- 
spread and  that  his  monks  from  St.  Andrew's  monastery 
were  deeply  imbued  with  his  views.    There  is  no  reason 

263 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

to  believe,  as  a  modern  writer  remarks,  that  they  were  in 
any  sense  learned  men.  All  that  the  pope  demanded  from 
his  pupils  and  proteges  was  sufficient  learning  from  them 
to  be  able  to  read  the  Scriptures,  service  books,  lives  of 
the  saints,  and  to  explain  the  elementary  dogmas;  and, 
secondly,  to  be  able  to  chant  the  psalter.  There  is  no 
evidence  anywhere  of  his  patronage  of  libraries  and 
schools,  except  choir  schools.  The  only  teaching  tradi- 
tionally associated  with  Augustine  and  his  colleagues  was 
that  preparatory  to  a  clerical  life  and  the  schools  founded 
by  them  were,  as  far  as  the  evidence  goes,  seminary  schools 
and  schools  for  the  teaching  of  choir  boys  and  men 
through  the  medium  of  no  language  but  Latin.  "It  was 
very  different  with  the  Irish  missionaries  who  presently 
lighted  a  great  lamp  in  Northumbria  and  who  came  from 
a  country  then  all  aflame  with  zeal  for  learning  as  well 
as  religion."^  Not  even  to  Augustine  can  be  rightly 
attributed  the  introduction  of  the  Benedictine  rule  into 
England.  That  was  the  work  of  Benet  Biscop,  Wilfrid 
and  Ceolfrid,  and  to  the  time  of  Dunstan  it  was  only  a 
fragmentary  introduction,  a  blend  of  the  Irish  and  Bene- 
dictine rule,  as  in  the  majority  of  the  foundations  in  Gaul 
before  the  time  of  St.  Benedict  of  Aniane. 

2.  Theodore  and  "Molossian  Hounds"  at  Canterbury 

The  influence  of  Theodore  and  Adrian,  who  estab- 
lished a  school  with  a  wider  curriculum  at  Canterbury, 
has  been  similarly  exaggerated.  Theodore  was  an  old  man, 
sixty-nine  years  of  age,  when  he  arrived  in  England  in 
668.  Neither  he  nor  Adrian  knew  anything  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  tongue  and  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  either  of 
them  ever  attempted  to  learn  a  word  of  what  was  to  them 

1  Howorth,  Golden  Days  of  the  English  Church,  III,  359. 

264 


Irish  Tutelage  of  England 


the  mere  brutal  jargon  of  uncouth  savages.  On  the  face 
of  it  it  taxes  our  credulity  to  invite  us  to  believe,  as  is 
uniformly  done,  that  such  development  as  is  discernible  in 
England  at  that  time  w^as  mainly  due  to  their  labor.  There 
is  no  real  evidence  even  that  Theodore  did  any  actual 
teaching  outside  of  his  preaching.  The  Roman  tradition, 
plainly  voiced  by  Gregory  the  Great  in  respect  to  the 
impropriety  of  a  bishop  teaching  secular  subjects,  could 
not  have  but  influenced  Theodore.  It  is  true  that  Bede 
praises  both  of  them  highly.  It  is  true  that  from  Theo- 
dore and  Adrian  some  of  the  natives  actually  learned 
Latin  and  Greek.  It  is  likewise  true  that  such  knowledge 
speedily  died  out,  as  the  very  passage  of  Bede  relating  to 
it  indicates.  But  a  mere  consideration  of  indubitable 
facts  makes  it  clear  that  we  must  look  elsewhere  for  the 
real  source  of  such  civilized  progress  as  the  English  tribes 
were  then  making.  That  source  lay  in  the  impassioned 
efforts  of  strenuous,  accomplished  Irishmen  in  every 
corner  of  England.  Wherever  real  progress  was  evident, 
wherever  books  were  being  written,  wherever  scholars  of 
note  appeared,  wherever  a  school  showed  real  results, 
wherever  the  arts  were  being  cultivated,  there  Irishmen 
were  in  the  midst  of  it.  Count  the  number  of  scholars  in 
England  during  the  Anglo-Saxon  period  who  left  any- 
thing behind  them.  Almost  without  exception  they  were 
Irish-trained.  Canterbury  has  hardly  a  single  scholar 
worth  mentioning  to  show.  Aldhelm,  Bede,  Alcuin, 
Fredegis,  Egbert,  Caedmon,  Cynewulf,  Dunstan,  were 
everyone  of  them  associated  with  Irish  teachers  and  Irish 
foundations.  Up  to  the  period  of  the  Conquest  Anglo- 
Saxon  manuscripts  were  written  entirely,  as  has  been  said, 
in  the  Irish  script.  Not  a  single  document  exists  in  the 
Roman  script  with  the  dubious  exception  of  a  small  chart, 

265 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

half  Roman,  half  Irish,  belonging  to  the  eleventh  century. 
And  so  through  all  the  visible  evidences  that  have  been 
preserved  to  us  of  that  period — books,  metal  work,  sculp- 
ture, architecture  and  other  products  of  the  allied  arts. 
The  portable  specimens  might  have  been  made  in  Ire- 
land, and  are  believed,  many  of  them,  to  have  been  made 
in  Ireland,  so  manifestly  are  they  examples  of  Irish  craft.^ 
In  the  school  founded  by  Theodore,  the  Cilician  arch- 
bishop had  the  cooperation  of  Irish  scholars.  Even  then 
that  love  of  dialectical  controversy,  of  probing  into  the 
ratio  of  things,  v^hich  was  later  to  make  the  Irish  school- 
men the  stormy  petrels  of  the  continental  church,  and 
which  already  had  found  its  illustrations  in  the  Paschal 
disputations  and  in  the  correspondence  between  Colum- 
banus  and  the  Frank  bishops  and  between  Columbanus 
and  Popes  Gregory  and  Boniface,  had  become  habitual 
to  them.  Aldhelm,  who  was  stationed  at  Canterbury  at 
the  time,  in  one  of  his  letters  indicates  that  in  the  Greek 
from  Tarsus  the  Irishmen  discovered  a  doughty  antago- 
nist. The  archbishop,  he  says,  was  "densely  surrounded  by 
a  crowd  of  Irish  students,  who  grievously  badgered  him 
(globo  discipulorum  stipetur)  as  the  truculent  boar  was 
hemmed  in  by  a  snarling  pack  of  Molossian  hounds.  He 
tore  them  with  the  tusks  of  grammar  and  pierced  them 
with  the  deep  and  sharp  syllogisms  of  chronography  till 
they  cast  away  their  weapons  and  hurriedly  fled  to  the 
recesses  of  their  dens."^  The  point  to  be  noted  here  is 
that  even  at  Canterbury  and  in  Kent,  with  which  Irish 
influence  is  seldom  associated,  Irish  scholars  were  active, 

1  "It  is  now  well  ascertained  that  all  the  sacred  books  so  highly  venerated 
by  the  Anglo-Saxon  Church  and  left  by  her  early  bishops  as  heirlooms  to 
their  respective  sees  were  obtained  from  Ireland  or  written  by  Irish  scribes." 
(Rev.  J.  H.  Todd,  Proc.  Roy.  I.  Acad.,  "Vol.  I,  41.) 

2  Giles,  Aldhelmi  Opera,  p.  94;  Brown,  Aldhelm,  263-4.  Compare  Aldhelm's 
description  with  Gregory  Nazienzen's  account  of  the  encounter  of  Basil  with 
the  Armenian  students  in  Athens  (Oration  XLIII). 

266 


Irish  Tutelage  of  England 


and  had  probably  been  familiar  figures  since  Dagan  had 
refused  the  hospitality  of  Lawrence,  successor  of  Augus- 
tine. 

Bede  furnishes  us  with  little  detail  respecting  the  kind 
of  teaching  fostered  by  Adrian  and  his  master  Theodore, 
but  he  gives  us  a  goodly  list  of  their  scholars.  The  really 
important  new  element  introduced  by  Adrian  into  the 
Canterbury  school  was  the  teaching  of  Greek.  Beyond 
that  the  great  Irish  schools  had  little  to  learn  and  it  was 
doubtless  in  pursuit  of  a  more  advanced  knowledge  of 
Greek  that  those  Irish  scholars  were  present  at  Canterbury 
who  were  not  merely  sojourning  there  in  their  journey 
to  the  Continent.  They  alone  appear  to  have  been  able 
to  take  permanent  advantage  of  the  opportunity  thus 
afforded,  and  to  this  source  we  may  look  for  at  least  one 
tributary  to  that  Hellenic  knowledge  which  they  display 
in  subsequent  ages  when  such  knowledge  was  elsewhere 
dead  in  the  West.  To  the  brighter  spirits  among  the 
English  natives  the  fame  of  the  African  and  the  Greek, 
with  all  the  prestige  of  the  Roman  empire  behind  them, 
could  not  compete  with  the  fame  of  Irish  scholars  and  the 
Irish  schools,  then  rising  to  the  meridian  of  their  influence 
and  development.  Instead  of  flocking  to  Canterbury, 
they  continued  to  flock  in  the  direction  of  Ireland.  The 
letter  of  Aldhelm  to  Eahfrid  exhibits  in  turgid  Latin  his 
naive  irritation  over  the  superior  attraction  of  the  Irish 
schools:  "I,  a  wretched  small  man,  have  revolved  these 
things  as  I  wrote  them  down  and  have  been  tortured  with 
the  anxious  question:  Why  should  Ireland,  whither 
students  ship-borne  flock  together  in  summer,  why  should 
Ireland  be  exalted  by  some  ineffable  privilege  as  tho 
here  on  this  fertile  turf  of  Britain  teachers  of  Latin  and 
Greek  (didacaii  Argivi  Romanive  Quirites)  cannot  be 

267 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

found,  who,  solving  the  seven  problems  of  the  celestial 
library  are  able  to  unlock  them  to  untutored  smatterers. 
The  fields  of  Ireland  are  as  rich  in  learners  and  in  the 
exuberant  number  (pascuosa  numerositate)  of  students  as 
the  pivots  of  the  pole  quiver  with  vibrations  of  the  glitter- 
ing constellations,  and  yet  Britain  (if  you  like  to  say  so) 
placed  almost  at  the  extreme  verge  of  the  world,  possesses 
a  glowing  sun  and  a  lustrous  moon,  that  is  to  say,  Theo- 
dore, the  archbishop  of  the  island,  who  has  grown  old  in 
acquiring  the  flowers  of  the  philosophic  art,  and  Adrian, 
his  companion  in  the  brotherhood  of  learning,  and  inef- 
fably endowed  with  pure  urbanity."^ 

While  it  is  sometimes  asserted  that  Adrian  founded 
other  schools  in  England  besides  that  at  Canterbury  there 
has  been  found  only  one  charter,  accepted  as  genuine  by 
Kemble,  containing  grants  to  him.  This  is  dated  686  and 
is  a  conveyance  of  land  in  Kent,  being  a  part  of  his  own 
demesne  (terrae  juris  mei)  made  with  the  consent  of  his 
elders  by  King  Eadric  to  St.  Augustine's  abbey. 

3.   Irish  Plant  Arts  and  Industries  in  England 

No  missionary  from  Italy  had  ever,  till  the  installation 
of  Theodore  of  Tarsus,  dwelt  outside  the  boundaries  of 
Kent.  Their  hold  even  on  Kent  was  a  feeble  hold,  for 
reversion  to  heathensim  was  the  order  of  the  day  and  the 
graces  of  civilized  life  were  not  even  coveted  or  imparted. 
Of  themselves  the  English  could  do  nothing.  As  a  result 
of  their  almost  absolute  barbarism  they  showed  from  the 
beginning  an  incapacity  for  initiating  or  originating  any- 
thing. Thus  while  Britain  was  everywhere  encumbered 
with  Roman  buildings  of  stone,  intact  or  in  ruins,  Benet 

1  Giles.  Adhelmi  Opera,  p.  94;  Migne  Pat.  Lat.,  LXXXIX,  col.  94.  Stubbs 
suggests  that  Eahfrid,  to  whom  Aldhelm's  letter  is  addrest,  may  have  been 
either  Echfrith,  abbot  of  Glastonbury,  or  Eadfrid,  bishop  of  Lindisfame. 
Raine  definitely  identifies  him  with  this  latter. 

268 


Irish  Tutelage  of  England 


Biscop  had  late  in  the  seventh  century  to  import  artizans 
from  Gaul  to  build  the  simple  houses  he  desired  to  erect 
at  Wcarmouth  and  Jarrow.  Among  the  native  population 
he  could  find  nobody  capable  of  the  simplest  work  of 
carpentry,  quarrying  and  construction^  tho  the  models 
of  the  vanished  empire  were  ever  before  their  eyes. 

Everywhere  throughout  England  on  the  other  hand 
where  the  arts  and  works  of  civilized  life  were  superseding 
the  futile  monotony  and  disorder  of  barbarism,  Irishmen 
were  themselves  accomplishing  the  work  or  instructing 
the  reclaimed  English  how  to  do  it.  In  the  region  spread- 
ing out  like  a  fan  from  Malmesbury  they  dotted  the  land 
with  edifices  that  rivaled  the  Roman  models  in  design 
and  durability.  The  church  erected  at  Bradford-on- 
Avon,  whether  the  work  of  Aldhelm's  time  or  a  renova- 
tion of  the  ninth  century,  shows  the  influence  of  Irish 
hands  and  endures  to  this  day.  At  Frome,  Sherborne,  and 
Wareham  on  the  south  coast,  where  the  first  buildings 
known  to  Wessex  were  raised,  they  must  have  worked  in 
goodly  numbers.  The  monastic  life  they  introduced  into 
the  country  was  fruitful  in  good  work.  As  Green  puts 
it:  *'It  broke  the  dreary  line  of  the  northern  coast  with 
settlements  which  proved  the  forerunner  of  some  of  the 
busiest  English  ports.  It  broke  the  silence  of  waste  and 
moor  by  homes  like  that  of  Ripon  and  Lastingham.  It 
set  agricultural  colonies  in  the  depths  of  vast  woodlands, 
as  at  Evesham  and  Malmesbury,  while  by  a  chain  of 
religious  houses  it  made  its  way  step  by  step  into  the  heart 
of  the  Fens."' 

It  was  of  course  chiefly  in  the  north  that  Irish  activity 
directed  its  first  energies.  But  soon  the  Irish  missionary, 
artist,    and   craftsman   was   exercising   his    humanizing 

1  Hist,  of  England, 

269 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

influence  in  every  corner  of  the  island.  Fursa  in  East 
Anglia,  Dicuil  in  Sussex,  Finan  in  Essex,  and  Diuma  and 
his  associates  in  Mercia  were  but  representative  of  a  great 
apostolate,  embracing  industry  and  art  as  v^^ell  as  religion 
and  learning,  that  elevated  and  organized  the  land. 
.Wherever  the  Irishmen  concentrated  their  energies  the 
result  was  seen  in  a  general  speeding  up  of  effort  in  every 
department  of  national  or  provincial  life.  Under  their 
tutelage  Northumbria  became  the  first  of  the  English 
states  in  influence  and  the  first  in  the  department  of  letters. 
Its  kings  were  educated  in  lona  and  Ireland,  and  there 
they  learned  to  speak  and  write  the  Irish  tongue  and 
become  acquainted  with  the  graces  of  Irish  literature, 
then  already  embodied  in  the  literary  shape  in  which  its 
splendid  fragments  have  come  down  to  us. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  there  were  other  English 
records  akin  to  Bede's  telling  among  other  things  of  the 
work  of  Irishmen  in  England.  Simeon  of  Durham's 
chronicles^  appear  to  be  based  on  a  Northumbrian  history 
now  lost.  Had  Bede's  history  been  destroyed  we  would 
know  very  little  concerning  what  Irishmen  did  in  En- 
gland, yet  Bede  wrote  only  a  century  after  Irishmen  began 
their  work.  Of  their  later  work  there  is  no  connected 
narrative  and  we  have  to  assemble  our  information  from 
scattered  sources.  The  fact  appears  to  be  that  the  Irish 
records  in  England  were  destroyed  by  the  Danes,  who 
devastated  the  very  provinces  where  their  influence  was 
strongest.  We  know  that  Irish  influence  was  the  strongest 
leaven  in  Anglo-Saxon  life,  but  had  we  the  full,  instead 
of  only  the  partial  facts  concerning  that  influence,  doubt- 
less the  origin  of  much  that  is  obscure  would  be  revealed. 

1  Historia  de  Gestis  Regum   Anglorum. 


270 


Irish  Tutelage  of  England 


4.  By  the  Time  of  Bede  and  Alcuin 

By  the  time  of  Bede  and  Alcuin,  the  north  of  England 
was  covered  with  Irish  schools.  Bede  himself  was  trained 
at  Jarrow  and  had  as  masters  there,  as  he  himself  tells  us, 
Trumhere,  or  Trumbert,  the  disciple  of  St.  Chad  and 
Sigfrid,  who  had  been  the  fellow  pupil  of  Cuthbert  at  the 
Irish  foundation  of  Melrose  under  Boisil  and  Eata,  whom 
Aidan  had  rescued  from  slavery,  educated  and  ordained. 
From  these  Bede  "derived  the  Irish  knowledge  of  Scrip- 
ture and  discipline."^  Another  of  those  who  influenced 
him  was  John  of  Beverly,  the  pupil  of  Theodore  and 
of  the  Irish  foundation  of  Whitby.  Trumbert  was  brought 
up  among  the  Irish-trained  monks  of  Lestingham, 
founded  by  Chad.  Sigfrid  was  living  at  Jarrow 
an  aged  invalid  when  Bede  was  writing  his  history  and 
the  methods  and  all-consuming  passion  for  teaching  and 
learning  derived  from  his  Irish  masters  are  movingly 
portrayed  by  Bede  in  the  scenes  preceding  his  death.* 
Ceolfrid,^  the  patron  and  teacher  of  Bede,  had  always 
been  subject  to  Irish  influences,  having  assumed  the  habit 
and  entered  the  monastery  of  Ingetlingum  (i.  e.,  Colling- 
ham),  where  his  elder  brother.  Abbot  Cynefrid,  then 
ruled.  He  committed  him  for  instruction  to  his  relative 
Tunberht,  who  afterward  became  bishop  of  Hexham. 
Cynefrid  himself,  as  the  "Anonymous  History  of  the 
Abbots"  tells  us,  had  been  to  Ireland  for  the  purpose 
of  studying  the  Scriptures  and  "of  seeing  the  Lord  more 
frequently  in  tears  and  prayers."  Benet  Biscop,  who 
founded  Jarrow  and  Monkwearmouth,  received  like  Wil- 
frid his  education  among  the  Irish  monks  of  Lindisfarne 
and  its  dependent  foundations,  who  cooperated  in  the  new 

1  Stubbs,  Diet,  of  Chr.  Biog:.,  sub  voce  Bede. 

2De  Abbatibus, 

3Migne,  Patrol,  Lat.,  LXXXIX. 

271 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

creations  on  the  banks  of  the  Tyne  and  Wear.  Bede's 
history  seems  to  have  been  modeled  on  Irish  historical 
works  like  those  of  Adamnan,  who  wrote  his  life  of 
Columcille  when  Bede  was  a  young  man,  and  who  is 
said  to  have  written  also  in  Latin  a  history  of  the  Irish 
people  down  to  his  own  times/ 

There  was  evidently  a  very  close  connection  between 
Northumbria  and  Clonmacnois,  for  Tighernach,  abbot 
of  that  great  seat  of  learning,  in  his  Annals,  gives  the  dates 
of  Bede's  works  as  they  are  written,  evidently  copied  from 
contemporary  records,  and  notices  the  date  of  the  found- 
ing of  Lindisfarne  and  the  changing  of  Easter  at  lona. 
The  letters  of  Alcuin  reveal  the  intimate  intercourse 
between  Clonmacnois  and  the  school  of  York  as  well  as 
Tours  and  the  court  of  Charlemagne.^  In  the  Annals  of 
Ulster  under  fhe  year  730,  and  in  the  Annals  of  Tigher- 
nach in  731,  we  read,  "Echdach  (i.  e.,  Eochaid),  the  son 
of  Cuidin  (i.  e.,  Cuthwene),  King  of  the  Saxons,  was 
tonsured  (clericatus)  and  imprisoned  (constringitur)." 
The  Eochaid  here  referred  to  was  Ceolwulf,  King  of 
Northumbria,  to  whom  Bede  dedicates  his  history.  Ceol- 
wulf, like  Aldfrid,  had  apparently  an  alternative  Irish 
name,  but  there  is  no  other  indication,  beyond  the  fact 
that  he  was  an  ardent  student,  that  he  had  lived  in  Ireland. 
He  lived  for  the  last  twenty-three  years  of  his  life  at 
Lindisfarne.  During  the  central  years  of  Bede's  life  the 
reigning  king  of  Northumbria  was  Aldfrid,  whose  affilia- 
tions with  Ireland  were  so  intimate  and  enduring.' 

iWard,  Vita  Rumoldi,  p.  218,  Lovan.,  1662. 

2  From  Tours  he  addresses  Colgu,  Fer-leiginn  or  Rector  of  Clonmacnois,  as 
"master  and  fathei*"  and  discusses  its  affairs  with  him.  He  gives  the  gossip 
of  Clonmacnois  to  Josephus  Scotus,  who  was  student  under  Colgu  at  Clon- 
macnois and  instructor  at  York  (Migne,  Pat.  Lat.  C,  cols.  128,  142,  143,  445). 
His  learning  made  him  appear  an  Irishman  to  his  contemporaries.  Thus  the 
Chronicon  Turonense  at  791:  "Erat  autem  Alcuinus  Scotus,  ingenio  clarus," 
etc.   (Migne  C,  coL  128), 

3  See  Dublin  Review,  XXI,  519. 

2^2 


■Mr 


Irish  Tutelage  of  England 


There  were  Irish  monks  and  Irish  trained  monks  at 
York,  at  Jarrow,  at  Monkwearmouth,  at  Melrose,  at 
Hexham,  at  Whitby,  and  other  foundations.  The  later 
English  schools,  brief  and  fitful  in  their  career,  were 
often  but  the  piecing  together  again,  on  the  site  or  in  the 
neighborhood,  of  the  older  Irish  foundations,  broken  up  in 
the  periodic  homicidal  welter  of  internecine  conflict  that 
succeeded  the  passing  of  one  petty  king  or  another  through 
Anglo-Saxon  history.  At  York,  an  offshoot  of  Lindisf  arne, 
Alcuin  appears  to  have  acquired  from  Irish  Hellenists 
there  resident  such  knowledge  of  Greek^  as  he  possest,  tho 
the  knowledge  may  likewise  have  been  acquired  at  Clon- 
macnois,  if  he  actually  studied  under  Colgu  in  that  great 
seat  of  learning.^  The  master  who  influenced  Alcuin  most 
in  company  with  iElbert  had  been  brought  into  the 
monastery  by  Eata,  the  protege  of  Aidan  and  one  of  the 
earliest  representatives  of  Irish  learning  among  the 
English.^  The  Irish  scholars  and  craftsmen  all  over 
England  put  no  curb  on  the  liberality  with  which  they 
dispensed  their  learning  and  skill.  That  the  pupils  should 
lag  behind  the  masters  is  only  in  the  nature  of  things.  The 
slough  of  an  age-long  barbarism  was  not  easily  shed;  but 
if  a  mere  film  of  mediocrity  and  dulness  in  contrast  to 
the  depth  of  brutality  and  despair  underneath  is  what  is 
represented  by  progress  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  epoch,  it  is 
well  to  remember  that  in  one  or  two  directions  and  in 
one  or  two  examples  Anglo-Saxon  skill  rivaled  its  Irish 

1  This  is  the  opinion  of  Gardthausen,  the  German  authority  on  Greek 
paleography. 

2  As  to  whether  Alcuin  studied  at  Clonmacnois:  cf.  Monnier,  Alcuin  et 
Charlemagrne,  Paris,  1854.  Alcuin's  admiration  for  the  culture  of  Irishmen 
as  well  as  his  dread  of  their  "Egyptian"  philosophy  break  out  frequently  In 
his  correspondence  and  other  works  (Probenius  edition,  I,  185,  285,  284,  286 
note;  II,  185,  246,  vers.  458). 

3  At  York  under  Alcuin  was  Lludg-er,  later  archbishop  of  the  Frisians, 
apparently  the  only  continental  student  that  ever  went  to  England  for  educa- 
tion. 


19 


273 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

archetype.  The  singularity  of  the  Book  of  Lindisfarne 
as  a  work  produced  in  England  by  the  natives  themselves, 
instructed  by  Irish  artists,  is  manifest  in  the  contrast 
between  its  finished  beauty  and  the  other  memorials  of 
its  school.  Its  ascription  to  Eadfrid,  a  student  in  Ireland, 
may  be  correct.  But,  if  genuinely  Anglo-Saxon,  it  is  no 
less  manifestly  a  creation  of  Irish  art,  indistinguishable 
in  its  characteristics  from  other  works  of  the  period  pro- 
duced in  Ireland.  A  succession  of  paleographers  have 
labored  in  the  pursuit  of  some  distinguishing  mark  which 
would  enable  them  to  differentiate  Irish  from  Anglo- 
Saxon  manuscripts,  illuminated  and  non-illuminated. 
Their  labor  has  been  in  vain.  The  strong  tutelary  Irish 
hand  kept  its  grasp  on  England,  guiding  the  hands  and 
feet  of  the  aborigines  of  the  country,  recording  their  first 
lispings  of  the  syllables  of  civilization,  nursing  the  prom- 
ise of  individuality  in  custom  and  speech,  imposing  the 
bridle  of  Christian  principle  on  the  gaping  ferocities  of 
barbaric  appetite  and  passion,  and  impressing  everywhere 
the  Irish  form  and  imprint,  so  that  the  work  of  their  hands 
was  as  the  copy  to  the  prototype,  differing  only  as  the  voice 
of  the  neophyte  reproduced  in  halting  but  faithful  words 
the  meaning  of  his  instructor/ 

5.   Irish  Scholars  and  King  Alfred 
Missionary  Irishmen  labored  to   restore  learning  in 
England  during  the  prolonged  period  when  the  Danes 

1  Symeon  of  Durham  has  preserved  a  poem  by  ^thelwulf  "de  Abbatibus" 
which  was  dedicated  to  Egberht,  then  living  in  Ireland.  In  this  poem  he  has 
a  chapter  devoted  to  an  Irishman,  named  Ultan,  who  was  a  priest  and  skilled 
in  the  ornamentation  of  books. 

"Comtis  qui  potuit  notis  ornare  libellos 
Atque  apicum  speciem  viritim  sic  reddit  amoenam, 
Hac  arte  ut  nuUus  possit  se  acquare  modernus 

Scriptor." 

(i^thelwulf's  poem,  Appendix,  Sym.  of  Durham,  ed.,  Arnold,  p.  274.) 

Ultan  was  also  a  zealous  teacher  and  lived  to  be  an  old  man.     We  are 

told  moreover  of  a  brother,  named  Cuicin,  also  apparently  Irish,  who  was  a 

skilful   smith   and   a  very  holy  man,   minglingr  the  singing  of  psalms  with 

his  noisy  occupation. 


Irish  Tutelage  of  England 


assisted  in  ruining  it.  The  early  chroniclers  are  unani- 
mous almost  in  associating  Irishmen  with  King  Alfred's 
reforms  and  some  of  them  bring  in  the  celebrated 
Johannes  Scotus  Eriugena  as  leader  of  an  intellectual 
revival,  confounding  him,  as  Huber  notes,  with  John 
from  German  Saxony.  Alfred  himself  supplies  us  with 
the  names  of  three  Irishmen  who  acted  as  his  co-workers 
and  a  recital  of  the  extraordinary  manner  of  their  arrival. 
In  the  Chronicle,  the  origin  of  which  is  attributed  to  him, 
at  the  year  891,  occurs  the  passage:  "In  this  year  three 
Irishmen  came  to  Alfred  king  on  a  boat  without  oars 
or  rudder.  They  had  stolen  away  from  Ireland  because 
they  would  be  for  God's  love  on  pilgrimage,  they  recked 
not  where.  The  boat  on  which  they  fared  was  wrought 
of  two  and  a  half  hides  and  they  took  with  them  meats 
for  seven  nights.  And  at  the  end  of  the  seventh  night 
they  came  to  land  in  Cornwall  and  straightway  fared  to 
Alfred  king.  Thus  were  they  named,  Dubslane,  and 
Macbeth  and  Maelinmain."  The  story  is  redolent  of 
the  spirit  of  Irish  history  and  saga,  and  reproduces  pre- 
eminently the  spirit  of  the  Irish  pilgrim.  In  the  Book 
of  Leinster  is  a  story  how  three  young  Irish  clerics  set 
out  on  a  pilgrimage;  they  took  as  provision  on  the  sea 
only  three  loaves.  "In  the  name  of  Christ,"  said  they, 
"let  us  throw  our  oars  into  the  sea  and  let  us  commend 
ourselves  to  the  Lord." 

According  to  the  chronicle  of  Fabius  Ethelwerd,  the 
three  Irishmen,  after  leaving  Alfred,  "who  with  his  senate 
rejoiced  at  their  coming,"  went  to  Rome  and  Jerusalem 
"as  is  customary  with  teachers  of  Christianity."  He 
describes  the  three  respectively  as  "flourishing  in  the  arts, 
skilled  in  letters  and  a  distinguished  master  of  the  Scots."* 

1  Bk.  IV,  Ch.  Ill,  A.  D.  891. 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

Asser,  Alfred's  minister  and  biographer,  speaks  of  ambas- 
sadors from  Ireland  to  Alfred,  writing  of  "the  daily 
embassies  sent  to  him  by  foreign  nations  from  the  Tyr- 
rhenian Sea  to  the  furthest  end  of  Ireland."^  He  talks 
of  Alfred  making  gifts  to  Irish  churches  and  of  numbers 
of  Irishmen  among  those  who  came  voluntarily  into  his 
domain.  Concerning  John  the  Saxon,  whom  William  of 
Malmesbury  and  other  English  chroniclers  confound 
with  Johannes  Scotus  Eriugena,  little  is  known.  But  he 
came  from  Corbie  in  Saxony,  a  branch  of  the  Irish  founda- 
tion of  Corbie  on  the  Somme.  Asser  himself  came  to  Alfred 
from  Menevia,  or  St.  Davids,  a  great  Brito-Irish  center 
and  the  point  in  Wales  nearest  Ireland.  He  may  have 
been  wholly  or  partially  Irish.  The  mere  fact  of  his 
culture  in  that  age,  when  Wales  was  far  from  conspicuous 
in  culture,  would  tend  to  show  that  he  had  Irish  connec- 
tions.^ 

6.  Irish  Literati  Before  and  After  Dunstan 

We  are  informed  concerning  Dunstan,  archbishop  of 
Canterbury  (d.  988),  who  became  notable  for  many 
reforms,  including  the  restoration  of  the  Benedictine 
monasteries,  that  "he  received  his  education  under  certain 
Irish  monks  who  were  excellent  masters  of  the  sciences 
and  at  that  time  resided  in  Glastonbury,  which  the  wars 
had  left  in  a  most  ruinous  condition."^ 

Dunstan,  the  first  Englishman  meriting  the  name  of 
statesman,  came  from  the  half-Celtic  region  of  Somerset 

1  Giles,    Six   Old  Ehiglish   Chronicles,  p.    78, 

2  The  apparently  authentic  Asser  is  preserved  almost  intact  In  only  one 
edition,  that  of  1722,  which  was  printed  from  a  tenth  century  Cottonian  MS. 
(Otho,  A.  xii),  destroyed  by  flre  in  1731.  Thomas  Wright  (Biogr.  Brit.  Lit. 
and  "Archaeologia,"  xxix)  questioned  the  authenticity  of  any  part  of  the 
work  attributed  to  Asser.  The  question  is  thoroughly  discussed  by  Paull 
In  the  introduction  to  his  "Life  of  Alfred  the  Great,"  and  by  T.  D.  Healy 
in  the  introduction  to  Petrie's  Monumenta. 

3  Vita   S.    Dunstani,   auctore   Osbemo,    Migne,   CXXXVIT,    417-8. 

276 


Irish  Tutelage  of  England 


on  the  borderland  of  the  Brito-Irish  colony  and  a  good 
deal  of  the  Celtic  temper  ran  probably  with  the  blood  in 
his  veins.  Under  Dunstan's  administration  Celtic  Britain 
revived  again.  He  was  himself  first  an  abbot  of  the  old 
Brito-Irish  monastery  of  Glastonbury;  he  promoted  men 
from  that  region  to  the  principal  posts  of  the  kingdom; 
and  he  had  Eadgar  hallowed  king  at  the  ancient  West 
Welsh  royal  city  of  Bath,  married  to  a  Devonshire  lady 
and  buried  at  Glastonbury.  Indeed  that  establishment 
was  under  Dunstan  what  Westminster  was  under  the 
later  kings.  Florence  uses  the  strange  expression  that 
Eadgar  was  chosen  "by  the  Anglo-Britons" ;  and  the  meet- 
ing with  the  Welsh  and  Scotch  princes  in  the  semi-Welsh 
town  of  Chester  conveys  a  like  implication.^  Dunstan 
showed  the  versatility  characteristic  of  so  many  products 
of  Irish  training.  He  was  musician,  painter  and  scholar 
and  it  was  he  who  really  ruled  England. 

It  has  been  shown  elsewhere  that  Glastonbury  owed 
its  renewal  and  probably  its  actual  foundation  to  devoted 
Irishmen.  King  Eadgar  in  his  charter  endowing  Glas- 
tonbury in  Dunstan's  time  says  of  one  of  its  parish 
churches,  Beokery,  that  it  is  "called  otherwise  little 
Ireland."  Osbern^  of  Canterbury  tells  us  that  many  Irish- 
men— "men  of  great  renown,  nobly  preeminent  in  liberal 
and  sacred  learning" — made  pilgrimages  through 
England  at  that  period  and  promoted  the  revival  there. 
Thus  in  the  tenth  century  we  see  the  identical  work  going 
on  which  Aidan,  Finan,  and  Colman  undertook  in  the 
seventh.  And  the  need  was  almost  as  great  in  the  tenth 
as  in  the  seventh. 

Irish  scholar-monks  appear  to  have  been  active  at  Can- 

1  See  Allen,  Anglo-Saxon  Britain,  147. 

SMieme,  Pat.  Lat.,  CXXXVII,  417-8;  Wharton,  Anglia  Sacra  II,  91. 

2yy 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

terbury  in  the  time  of  Ethelred  II.  One  of  them,  abbot 
992-994,  is  considered  to  have  been  the  author  of  the 
so-called  Anglo-Saxon  Cottoniana  map  of  the  world, 
intended  to  illustrate  a  scriptural  subject,  but  still  very 
much  superior  to  most  other  medieval  maps  even  up  to 
the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century.  The  map  was  found 
bound  up  with  the  Peregesius  of  Priscian,  both  of  them 
written  in  Irish  characters  and  by  the  same  hand.  Unlike 
the  later  maps  of  Dulcert  and  Pizigani  St.  Brendan  the 
Navigator  does  not  figure  in  it,  but  Ireland — called  not 
Scotia  but  Hibernia — is  correctly  and  prominently  por- 
trayed, with  Armagh  as  the  capital.  This  Irish  geogra- 
pher is  supposed  to  have  been  a  coadjutor  of  Archbishop 
Sigeric,  with  whose  itinerary,  relating  to  his  pilgrimage 
to  Rome,  his  map  probably  had  connection.  The  study 
of  geography  degenerated  after  the  destruction  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  but  Irishmen  remained  foremost  in  it 
as  in  other  sciences,  tho  the  world  of  Strabo  had  become 
distorted  by  the  partial  acceptance  as  facts  of  the  stories 
of  heathen  mythology  and  medieval  romance.  The  maker 
of  the  Cottoniana  showed  knowledge  unusual  in  his  day. 
He  places  in  the  north  and  east  of  Europe  the  Scrittofinns 
(in  Iceland),  the  Huns,  the  Turks,  the  Slavs,  the  Goths 
in  Dacia,  and  the  Bulgarians.  The  Dneiper  is  men- 
tioned, strange  to  say,  by  its  native  name,  Naper  fiuvius. 
A  curious  entry  is  Sud  Bryttas,  and  seven  principal  cities 
in  Italy  are  given. 

Apart  from  the  Irish  missionaries,  literati,  and  crafts- 
men, to  whom  reference  is  made  in  the  scanty  English 
records,  it  is  plain  that  there  could  hardly  have  been  a 
time  when  numbers  of  other  Irishmen,  concerning  whom 
there  is  no  record  whatever,  must  have  been  in  England. 
The  Irish  schoolmen  who  in  the  Carolingian  era  were 

278 


Irish  Tutelage  of  England 


found  in  their  thousands  in  cathedral,  monastery  and 
school  on  the  Continent  must  nearly  all  of  them  have 
journeyed  or  resided  for  a  time  in  England.  Some  sailed 
directly  from  Irish  ports  to  French  ports;  that  we  know, 
but  these  must  have  formed  a  minority.  The  vast  majority 
must  have  taken  the  more  easy  route  through  England, 
except  in  the  frequent  periods  when  the  natives  were  on 
the  warpath  and  the  journey  was  impossible,  as  on  the 
occasions  to  which  Alcuin  in  his  letter  to  Colgu  of  Clon- 
macnois^  alludes.  Columbanus  and  his  company  traveled 
by  way  of  England,  made  an  effort  at  missionary  work 
there,  and  only  passed  on  because  of  the  hopelessness  of 
the  undertaking.  Probably  by  that  way  went  also  Dungal, 
Dicuil,  Clement,  Ferghil  of  Salzburg,  Johannes  Scotus 
Eriugena,  Sedulius  Scotus,  Marianus  Scotus,  and  those 
other  Irishmen  who  attained  fame  abroad.  The  presence 
of  men  such  as  these  in  England,  whether  transitory  or 
prolonged,  could  not  have  been  without  results.  Some  of 
them  probably  lived  and  taught  in  England  for  years 
and  only  sought  the  Continent,  when,  as  in  the  case  of 
Fursa  and  his  company,  the  internecine  conflicts  among 
the  English  tribes  eddied  in  their  direction  and  undid 
their  work.  In  these  Irish  colonies  will  be  found  the  key 
to  much  that  is  dark  in  English  history  as  well  as  the  roots 
of  that  fugitive  blooming  of  the  arts  showing  itself  here 
and  there  on  the  rank  soil  of  English  barbarism. 

iMigne.   Pat.   Lat.   C,    142,   Ad   Colcum   Lectorem   in  Scotia    (anno   790), 
Epistola  III. 


279 


CHAPTER  XXII 

CURRENT  OF  IRISH  CIVILIZATION  IN  ENGLAND 

I.  Whole  Art  of  England  Transplanted  Irish  Art.  2.  Seed  of  Irish 
Law  and  Opinion.  3.  Anglo-Saxon  Mediocre  Imitation  of  Irish 
Civilization.  4.  Incorrigible  Brutality  of  English  Aborigines. 
5.  Killing  English  Learning  at  its  Birth.  6.  Irish  Authority 
Gives  Way  to  French. 

I.  Whole  Art  of  England  Transplanted  Irish  Art 

IT  was  the  method  of  the  Irish  teachers,  as  Zimmer 
notes,  so  to  train  the  natives  of  whatever  country  that 
these  in  course  of  time  might  be  able  to  go  forward 
of  their  own  accord.  With  that  end  in  view  they  took 
what  was  already  good  among  them  and  built  from  that 
foundation.  As  the  English,  when  the  representatives  of 
•Irish  culture  first  went  among  them,  were  in  a  condition 
of  total  savagery,  they  had  to  build  from  the  bottom  up. 
They  taught  the  natives  how  to  read  and  spell  and  write, 
and  this  they  did  through  the  medium  of  the  Irish  charac- 
ters used  from  that  time  forward  in  England  till  its 
conquest  by  the  French,  when  that  other  style  of  the 
Caroline  hand,  which  continental  Irish  scribes  had  been 
instrumental  also  in  developing  on  the  basis  of  the  old 
Merovingian,  was  introduced  from  the  Continent.  And 
so  in  the  other  departments  of  art  and  knowledge.  Thus 
it  came  about  that  the  products  of  Anglo-Saxon  life  have 
the  universal  Irish  imprint,  as  the  conception  of  the 
teacher  is  reproduced  in  the  laborious  essay  of  the  scholar. 
The  whole  art  of  England,  during  the  Anglo-Saxon 
period,  was  thus  a  transplanted  Irish  art,  and  the  extant 

280 


Current  of  Irish  Civilization  in  England 

remains  among  other  things  show  this  very  clearly.  The 
Bewcastle  Cross,  the  crosses  of  Ampney  Crusis,  near 
Cirencester,  Bag  Enderly;  the  Anglo-Saxon  stone  carv- 
ings from  Jedburgh  Castle,  the  Ruthwell  Cross  and  other 
stone  carvings;  the  Alfred  Jewell,  the  St.  Cuthbert's 
Cross  and  the  like  in  metal  work;  the  oratories  at  Hexham 
and  Bradford-on-Avon  in  architecture,  and  similar  exam- 
ples of  the  art  of  the  period  that  remain,  are  eloquent  on 
this  point.  Clearer  even  is  the  Irish  hand  in  the  work  of 
those  illuminated  masterpieces  which  were  long  labeled 
as  examples  of  "Anglo-Saxon"  or  "Franco-Saxon"  or 
"Hiberno-Saxon"  art. 

Roman  influences  competed  with  Irish  in  the  English 
architecture  of  the  period.  That  the  Irish  were  great 
builders  the  famous  round  towers,  having  their  origin  in 
a  period  from  which  date  very  few  structures  of  value 
in  Europe,  are  alone  sufficient  witness.  Earlier  than 
these  are  the  vast  military  strongholds  of  Dun  Aenghus, 
Staigue  Fort,  Aileach  of  the  Kings  or  Grianan  Ely,  and 
Emain  Macha,  the  vast  incised  tumuli  of  New  Grange, 
Knowth  and  Dowth,  which  rank  almost  after  the  Pyra- 
mids of  Egypt  in  the  stupendous  labor  that  must  have 
been  expended  in  their  erection/ 

"Most  small  English  churches  were  built  on  a  plan" 
says  Micklethwaite,  "which  is  purely  ^Scottish'  (that  is, 
Irish)  all  through  the  Saxon  time  and  beyond  it.  There 
are  scores  of  them  all  over  the  country."  The  church  of 
iDeerhurst,  which  dates  from  the  eleventh  century;  Kirk- 
dale,  near  Kirby  Moorside  in  Yorkshire  (tenth  century) ; 
Corhampton,  in  Hampshire;  St.  Martin's,  Wareham; 
Wittering  in  Northamptonshire;  and  many  others  show 
the   same   plan    almost   complete.      "I    believe,"    adds 

1  See  "Irish  Archaeological  Remains,"  by  Benedict  Fitzpatrick.  Encyclo- 
paedia Americana,  1919,  Vol.  15. 

281 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

Micklethwaite,  "that  the  same  is  true  of  most  of  the  very 
many  churches  with  Saxon  west  towers,  but  nothing  else 
so  old  is  to  be  seen  in  them."  In  spite  of  the  prestige  of 
Roman  and  Italian  architecture  the  Irish  or  Scotic  type 
"continued  all  through  Saxon  times  and  was  passed  on  to 
those  that  came  after."^ 

Old  memorial  crosses  are  found  in  the  north  and  west 
of  England,  Northumbria  and  North  Mercia,  where  Irish 
influence  was  strongest.  They  are  unmistakably  of  Irish 
origin,  ornamented  with  Irish  interlaced  patterns,  and  the 
inscriptions,  on  such  as  have  them,  are  in  Irish  minuscules. 
The  number  of  them  must  run  into  thousands,  for  there 
are  more  than  five  hundred  in  Yorkshire  alone.  The 
Bewcastle  Cross,  the  Ruthwell  Cross,  Trumwine's  Cross, 
Acca's  Cross  (formerly  at  Hexham  now  at  Durham)  are 
among  the  chief.  The  Normans  destroyed  many  of  the 
Irish  and  Anglo-Saxon  crosses  and  sepulchral  monuments 
and  used  them  as  wall  stones. 

There  is  in  existence  still  what  is  probably  the  shaft 
of  the  cross  erected  to  the  memory  of  Bishop  Trumbert, 
whom  Cuthbert  succeeded  in  the  see  of  Hexham.  The 
stone  was  discovered  at  Yarm  a  few  years  ago  and  was 
then  used  as  a  weight  for  a  mangle.  It  is  now  preserved 
at  Durham.  It  bears  an  Anglian  inscription  in  several 
lines,  six  of  which  are  clear  enough,  written  in  Irish 
minuscules  and  adorned  with  Irish  interlaced  ornament. 
Another  example  is  the  cross  of  St.  Oswin  at  CoUingham 
with  Irish  interlaced  ornament.  It  bears  Oswin's  name 
and  was  discovered  in  1841. 

2.  Seed  of  Irish  Law  and  Opinion 

In  other  departments  of  knowledge  and  activity  a 
similar  tale  has  to  be  told.    It  would  have  been  strange 

1  Archseological  Journal,  vol.  XXXIX, 

282 


Current  of  Irish  Civilization  in  England 

if,  with  Irish  influence  so  powerful  in  Britain,  there  had 
been  no  reflex  in  the  larger  isle  of  that  wonderful  develop- 
ment reaching  to  the  remote  past  out  of  which  had  come 
the  old  Irish  laws.  It  has  been  the  habit  to  ascribe  the 
similarities  between  the  brehon  laws  of  Ireland  and  the 
old  Saxon  laws  to  their  common  origin  in  Aryan  custom. 
Calculations  have  been  made  as  to  how  much  of  ancient 
British  custom  survived  the  Anglo-Saxon  conquest  and 
became  incorporated  in  English  law.  The  coincidence  of 
particulars  in  early  bodies  of  law  has  been  held  to  prove 
nothing  beyond  the  resemblance  of  all  institutions  in  cer- 
tain stages.  The  existence  of  a  real  organic  connection 
between  what  is  called  Celtic  and  English  law  is  not 
denied,  but  the  source  of  such  affinity  has  been  looked  for 
in  the  general  stock  of  tradition  antecedent  to  the  distinc- 
tion of  race  and  tongue  between  German  and  Celt. 

This  is  looking  for  recondite  explanations  where  more 
natural  and  plausible  explanations  are  ready  at  hand.  It 
is  like  ignoring  a  man's  parents  and  going  back  to  more 
remote  ancestors  for  family  resemblances.  Irish  influence 
and  example  appear  a  much  more  reasonable  answer  to 
questions  as  to  the  origin  of  certain  English  laws  than 
learned  discussions  on  Aryan  traditions  or  references  to 
Welsh  laws.  The  English  rulers,  who,  as  we  know  from 
the  words  of  Bede,  looked  up  to  the  Irishmen  of  their 
age  as  their  great  exemplars  and  could  find  nothing  better 
than  what  was  the  custom  among  them,  were  not  likely 
to  borrow  from  almost  every  other  department  of  Irish 
life  and  ignore  the  highly  developed  Irish  laws.  The 
coincidences  that  exist  between  early  Irish  laws  and  insti- 
tutions and  early  English  laws  and  institutions  may  well 
be  taken  as  coincidences  arising  from  simple  borrowing, 
imitation  and  transplantation. 

283 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

The  fashions,  the  ideas,  the  methods,  the  points  of  view, 
the  motive,  spirit,  law  and  rule  that  formed  the  current 
of  Irish  civilization  found  its  way  into  channels  of 
English  life  more  numerous  than  it  is  possible  to  trace. 
But  Irish  influence  is  easily  followed  in  many  other 
directions.  Nearly  all  the  monasteries  of  northern  and 
central  England  had  been  founded  by  Irish  monks  and 
were  tenanted  by  them  and  their  disciples.  They  adopted 
the  rules  and  usages  of  the  Irish  even  in  critical  matters, 
like  the  practise  of  having  double  monasteries,  so  that 
monks  were  often  placed  under  the  rule  of  an  abbess. 
These  and  other  points  of  rule  and  ritual  survived  long 
after  the  Synod  of  Whitby  and  greatly  distinguished  the 
larger  part  of  the  English  monasteries  from  those  that 
had  adopted  the  rule  of  St.  Benedict.  Thus  there  con- 
tinued a  twofold  character  and  divergence  in  matters  of 
discipline,  usage  and  ritual  in  the  English  monasteries. 
The  churches  over  which  Irish  influence  prevailed  were 
easily  distinguished  from  those  in  which  continental 
custom  had  been  introduced.  This  does  not  mean  that 
there  were  actual  divergences  of  doctrine;  rather  was 
it  a  variety  of  rite  and  custom. 

In  the  English  monasteries  the  Irish  rule  continued  to 
be  followed  long  after  Colman  turned  his  back  on  the 
country  and  went  to  Ireland.  Thus  it  is  noted  concerning 
Ceolwulf,  to  whom  Bede  dedicated  his  Historia  Ecclesi- 
atica  and  who  died  in  retirement  in  760,  that  "when  this 
king  became  a  monk  license  was  given  to  the  brethren  to 
drink  wine  and  beer;  for  down  to  that  time  water  and 
milk  alone  had  been  permitted  them,  according  to  the 
rule  of  St.  Aidan.'" 

1  Simeon  of  Durham,  II,  102. 

284 


Current  of  Irish  Civilization  in  England 

3.  Anglo-Saxon  Mediocre  Imitation  of  Irish 
Civilization 

Anglo-Saxon  civilization,  such  as  it  became,  was  thus 
in  a  large  measure  a  transplanted  Irish  civilization,  and 
it  partook  of  the  mediocrity  in  comparison  with  the 
original  that  is  the  fate  of  all  reproductions.  Its  scholars 
were  not  numerous.  Bede  and  Alcuin,  the  greatest  of 
them,  were  collectors  and  distributors  rather  than  thinkers 
and  originators.  For  that  "philosophy"  and  speculative 
activity  for  which  the  Irish  schools  were  famous  no 
English  scholar  showed  an  aptitude.  No  English  school 
attained  to  the  fame  of  even  the  lesser  establishments  in 
Ireland.  In  truth  the  career  of  such  English  schools  as 
came  into  existence  was  brief  and  their  end  violent.  No 
English  scholar  arose  to  challenge  comparison  in 
originality  and  strength  of  intellect  with  Eriugena,  or 
Dungal  or  Sedulius  Scotus.  None  of  them  in  anything 
they  have  left  to  us  have  shown  real  knowledge  of  Greek 
literature  or  philosophy  despite  Theodore  and  Adrian 
and  despite  their  close  association  with  Irishmen.  Tho 
the  literary  works  of  medieval  Irishmen  have  been  sys- 
tematically destroyed,  tho  we  know  the  titles  of  many 
Irish  works  of  which  nothing  but  the  titles  have  been 
preserved,  the  fragments  that  remain  brilliantly  prove  the 
actuality  and  permanence  of  Irish  intellectual  supremacy, 
everlastingly  helping  others,  but  always  keeping  itself  in 
the  lead.  Reference  is  made  here  mainly  to  Irish  literary 
remains  in  Latin.  Irish  medieval  literature  in  the  Irish 
tongue  is  an  isolated  phenomenon  of  another  class,  a  world 
in  itself  and  a  luminous  link  between  the  ancient  and  the 
modern  age,  of  which  here  the  treatment  can  be  only 
indirect. 

All  this  converges  in  the  same  direction.    Civilization 

285 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

in  England  traces  its  genealogy  not  to  the  work  of  Theo- 
dore and  Adrian  but  to  that  of  Aidan  and  his  countrymen. 
An  Englishman  wedded  to  conventional  views  and  de- 
sirous of  cleaving  to  the  conventional  account  may 
choose  to  put  faith  in  legends  that  look  to  a  different 
origin.  He  will  find  himself  justified  in  doing  so  by 
distinguished  examples.  Cardinal  Newman,  for  instance, 
gave  credence  to  the  imaginary  story,  often  quoted,  of  a 
school  in  Wiltshire  called  for  its  classical  learning 
"Grecklade,"  since  corrupted  into  Cricklade,  and  trans- 
ferred afterwards  to  Oxford  as  one  of  the  first  elements 
of  its  university.  It  is  true  the  name  Greeklade  occurs  in 
Drayton's  "Polyolbion."  But  Cricklade  or  Greeklade,  so 
called  from  the  beginning  in  the  Saxon  Chronicle,  owes 
its  nomenclature  to  its  position  on  the  Thames  at  a  creek 
or  iniet,  like  several  places  similarly  situated  and  with 
the  same  prefix.  Cricklade  had  no  school  founded  by 
Theodore  or  Adrian  and  had  such  a  school  existed  it 
would  have  gone  the  way  of  the  other  schools  centuries 
before  Oxford  had  even  a  beginning.  But  this  legend  is 
given  as  typical  of  others  which  might  be  cited,  showing 
how  men  are  led  in  the  absence  and  sometimes  in  the  face 
of  fact  to  build  a  thesis  agreeable  to  their  prepossessions. 
Metaphors  are  deceptive.  To  picture  Theodore  and 
Adrian  as  sowing  and  planting  the  new  civilization  that 
was  to  come  sounds  plausible  as  long  as  we  do  not  stop 
to  consider  how  slowly  civilization  develops  and  how 
laboriously  the  powers  of  the  mind  are  to  be  cultivated 
by  individual  effort  alone.  The  teachers  and  preachers 
from  the  Continent  had  little  permanent  influence  on 
England.  We  have  seen  that  in  whatever  regions  the 
Roman  and  Gallic  missionaries  preached  their  influence 
proved  transitory  and  the  natives  fell  back  into  heathen- 

286 


Current  of  Irish  Civilization  in  England 

ism.  Within  a  few  years  of  Adrian's  death  hardly  a 
soul  in  England  knew  Greek.  In  other  departments  of 
knowledge  we  find  the  same  tale.  Benet  Biscop  had 
brought  glassmakers  into  England  to  build  and  adorn 
churches  at  Jarrow  and  Monkwearmouth.  But  fifty 
years  later  we  find  a  pupil  of  Bede  writing  to  a  French 
bishop  imploring  him  to  send  somebody  capable  of  mak- 
ing glass,  as  the  English  did  not  possess  the  art. 

During  the  intervals  in  which  the  guiding  hands  of  the 
Irish  directors  were  taken  from  England,  the  political 
incapacity  and  general  degradation  of  the  English  were 
nearly  always  asserted.  The  barbarism  of  the  people  was 
apparently  too  recent  to  permit  it  to  be  self-sustaining 
in  the  face  of  the  sore  trials  of  that  epoch.  The  general 
slackness  is  indicated  in  the  fact  that  for  two  centuries 
after  the  death  of  Alfred,  no  writer  or  thinker  of  note 
appeared  among  his  countrymen.  But  there  were  of 
course  graver  evils.  "A  tendency  to  swinish  self-indul- 
gence, and  the  sins  of  the  flesh  in  some  of  their  most 
degraded  forms,  had  marred  the  national  character."^ 
Thus  much  of  the  work  of  reformation  and  education 
which  devoted  Irishmen  with  so  much  patience  had 
accomplished  was  largely  undone.^ 

4.  Incorrigible  Brutality  of  English  Aborigines 
To  transform  a  conglomeration  of  savage  tribes  into 
a  civilized  people  was  a  herculean  task  and  it  is  little 

iHodgkin,  Political  History  of  England,  p.  491. 

2  The  English  imitated  the  Irish  habit  of  making  pilgrimages  to  Rome, 
with  dire  results,  particularly  in  the  case  of  the  female  pilgrims,  to  their 
less  vigorous  morality.  Thus  Boniface  in  his  letter  to  Cuthbert,  archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  observes:  "It  would  be  some  mitigation  of  the  disgrace  which 
is  reflected  upon  your  church  if  you  in  a  synod  and  your  princes  cooperating 
with  you,  would  make  some  regulation  with  respect  to  female  pilgrimages 
to  Rome.  Among  your  women,  even  your  nuns,  who  go  in  crowds  to  Rome, 
scarcely  any  return  home  unpolluted,  almost  all  are  ruined.  There  Is  scarcely 
a  city  in  Lombardy,  France  or  Gaul,  in  which  some  English  prostitute  or 
adventuress  may  not  be  found.  This  is  a  scandal,  a  disgrace  to  your  whole 
church."     (Epp.,  Boniface,  105.) 

287 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

wonder  that  the  Irish  missionaries  should  have  won  only 
partial  success.  The  obstacles  they  encountered  could 
not  well  have  been  greater.  The  history  of  the  Heptarchy 
was  like  a  history  of  kites  and  crows/  Not  only  were 
the  English  everlastingly  fighting  among  themselves 
undoing  the  work  of  regeneration  which  Irish  mission- 
aries with  immense  difficulty  had  set  up  among  them,  but 
the  conquest  of  England  was  almost  continuous  from  the 
time  of  Hengest  and  Horsa  to  the  time  of  the  Conqueror. 
The  Anglo-Saxons  slew  the  British,  reducing  some  to 
slavery,  fought  the  Irish  colonies  in  the  west  and  the 
Irishand  Pict  colonies  in  the  north,  massacred  each  other, 
and  were  then  hewn  down  and  cut  to  pieces  by  the  Danes 
till  the  French  conquerors  arrived  and  laid  both  Danes 
and  English  by  the  heels.  In  a  hundred  years,  out  of 
fourteen  kings  of  Northumbria,  seven  were  slain  and  six 
deposed.  Within  two  hundred  years  thirty  kings  and 
queens  cast  away  their  crowns  and  took  refuge  in  monas- 
teries like  Lindisfarne,  where  Irish  missionaries  had 
established  oases  of  peace  in  the  wilderness  of  disorder. 
Penda  of  Mercia  killed  five  kings  and  at  Bamborough 
heaped  the  ruins  of  all  the  surrounding  villages  into  an 
enormous  pile  on  which  he  projected  the  burning  and 
extermination  of  all  the  English  in  Northumbria. 

In  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries  things  showed  little 
improvement  over  the  seventh.  Observe  the  manners  of 
the  highest  ranks  in  the  family  of  the  last  king.  At  a  feast 
in  the  king's  hall  Harold  was  serving  Edward  the  Con- 
fessor with  wine,  when  Tostig,  his  brother,  moved  by 
envy,  seized  him  by  the  hair.  They  were  separated. 
Tostig  went  to  Hereford,  where  Harold  had  ordered  a 

1  "War  was  waged  daily  and  everywhere;  the  aim  of  life  was  not  to  be 
slain,  ransomed,  mutilated,  pillaged,  hanged,  and,  of  course,  if  it  was  a 
woman,  violated."  (Taine,  Hist,  of  Eng.  Lit.,  37;  Turner,  Hist,  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  II,  440,  Laws  of  Ina.) 

288 


Current  of  Irish  Civilization  in  England 

royal  banquet  to  be  prepared.  There  he  seized  his  brother's 
attendants  and  cutting  off  their  heads  and  limbs  placed 
them  in  vessels  of  wine,  ale,  mead,  and  cider,  and  sent  a 
message  to  the  king:  "If  you  go  to  your  farm  you  will  find 
there  plenty  of  salt  meat,  but  you  will  do  well  to  carry 
some  more  with  you." 

King  Edwy  having  chosen  as  concubine  Elgiva,  his 
relation  within  the  prohibited  degrees,  quitted  the  hall 
where  he  was  drinking  on  the  very  day  of  his  coronation 
to  be  with  her.  The  nobles  thought  themselves  insulted 
and  immediately  Abbot  Dunstan  went  himself  to  seek  the 
young  man.  "He  found  the  adulteress,  her  mother  and 
the  king  together  on  the  bed  of  debauch.  He  dragged 
the  king  thence  violently  and  setting  the  crown  upon  his 
head,  brought  him  back  to  the  nobles."^  Afterwards 
Elgiva  sent  men  to  put  out  Dunstan's  eyes,  and  in  the 
tumults  that  followed  saved  herself  and  the  king  by  hiding 
in  the  country,  where  they  lived  as  brigands,  but  the  men 
of  the  north  having  seized  her  "hamstrung  her  and  then 
subjected  her  to  the  death  she  deserved."^  "When  we 
regard  their  deeds  of  violence,  their  ferocity,  their  canni- 
bal jests,  we  see  that  they  are  not  far  removed  from  the 
sea  kings  or  from  the  followers  of  Odin,  who  ate  raw 
flesh,  hung  men  as  victims  on  the  sacred  trees  of  Upsala, 
and  killed  themselves  to  make  sure  of  dying,  as  they  had 
lived,  in  blood.'" 

5.  Killing  English  Learning  at  Its  Birth 

"In  vain  the  great  spirits  of  this  age  endeavor  to  link 
themselves  to  the  relics  of  the  fine  ancient  civilization  and 

1  Vita  S.  Dustani,  by  the  Monk  Osbern,  Anglia  Sacra,  II. 

2  See  Turner.  Hist  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  II,  216. 

3  Taine,  Hist,  of  English  Lit.,  I,  39.  Tantae  saevitiae  erant  fratres  illi 
(the  last  king)  quod,  cum  alicujus  nltidem  villam  conspicerem,  dominatorem 
de  nocte  interflci  uberent,  totamque  progeniem  illius  possessionemque  defunct 
obtinerent.     Henry  of  Huntingdon,  VI,  367.     Turner,  III,  27. 

^89 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

to  raise  themselves  above  the  chaotic  and  muddy  ignorance 
in  which  the  others  flounder.  They  are  almost  alone,  and 
on  their  death  the  others  sink  again  into  the  mire."^  They 
feel  their  impotence  and  decrepitude,  and  are  filled  with 
gloom  and  foreboding  for  their  country  and  countrymen. 
The  Synod  of  Pincanhalth,  held  in  790,  recalls,  as  in  an 
epitaph,  the  "days  when  we  had  righteous  kings  and 
dukes  and  bishops,  of  whose  wisdom  Northumbria  still 
smells  sweetly."  Bede,  dividing  the  history  of  the  world 
into  six  periods,  says  that  the  fifth,  which  stretches  from 
the  return  of  Babylon  to  the  birth  of  Christ,  is  the  senile 
period;  the  sixth  is  the  present  "aetas  decrepita,  totius 
morte  saeculi  consummanda."  The  last  paragraph  of 
Bede's  history  ends  in  a  note  of  doubt  concerning  times 
"so  filled  with  commotions  that  it  cannot  yet  be  known 
what  is  to  be  said  concerning  them  or  what  end  they  will 
have."  His  pessimism  was  well  founded.  Wars  and 
dissensions  were  in  a  fair  way  to  kill  English  learning  but 
little  after  its  birth  and  the  work  of  destruction  begun 
by  the  English  themselves  was  almost  carried  to  comple- 
tion by  the  Danes.  Outside  of  the  work  of  Alcuin  and  Al- 
fred there  is  almost  a  literary  waste  from  the  eighth  cen- 
tury to  the  revival  of  Anglo-Latin  literature  in  the  twelfth, 
and  this  among  the  French  conquerors.  No  historian  of 
like  mold  with  Bede  was  to  arise  in  the  succeeding  cen- 
turies and  tho  the  book  of  Simeon  of  Durham  pre- 
serves the  remnants  of  a  lost  Northumbrian  history  the 
period  from  the  death  of  Bede  to  870  is  difficult  and  dark 
of  comprehension  in  English  history.  There  are  periods 
in  English  history,  as  during  the  century  and  a  half  that 
preceded  the  coming  of  Augustine,  and  the  century  and 
a  half  that  followed  the  French  conquest,  when  the 

iTalne.  I.  68. 

290 


Current  of  Irish  Civilization  in  England 

English  people  appear  to  sink  out  of  sight  and  History 
with  mute  eloquence  draws  a  curtain  over  the  indescriba- 
ble scene,  and  this  period,  including  part  of  the  eighth 
and  part  of  the  ninth  century,  constitutes  one  of  these 
historical  blanks/  The  words  of  King  Alfred  give  us 
some  indication  of  the  demoralization  that  had  been  pro- 
ceeding. 

Referring  to  the  decay  of  learning,  especially  among  the 
religious  orders,  he  observes:  ''So  clean  it  (learning)  was 
ruined  among  the  English  people  that  there  were  very 
few  on  this  side  of  the  Humber  who  could  understand 
their  service  in  English  or  declare  forth  an  epistle  out 
of  Latin  into  English ;  and  I  think  there  were  not  many 
beyond  the  Humber.  So  few  such  there  were  that  I 
cannot  think  of  a  single  one  to  the  south  of  the  Thames 
when  I  began  to  reign.  To  God  Almighty  be  thanks  that 
we  have  any  teacher  in  stall."  Alfred's  efforts  to  educate 
his  people,  related  by  himself  and  Asser,  were  pathetic. 
With  the  help  of  the  foreign  scholars  around  him  he 
sought  to  translate  into  Saxon  parts  of  the  Bible,  and  of 
the  works  of  Boethius,  Orosius,""  and  Pope  Gregory.  But 
the  translations  bear  witness  chiefly  to  the  barbarism  of 
those  for  whom  they  were  intended.  The  language  is 
infantile.  "He  adapts  the  text  to  bring  it  down  to  their 
intelligence,  the  pretty  verses  of  Boethius,  somewhat  pre- 
tentious, labored,  elegant,  crowded  with  classical  allu- 
sions of  a  refined  and  compact  style  worthy  of  Seneca, 
became  an  artless,  long-drawn-out  and  yet  desultory  prose 

iThe  scantiness  and  imperfection  of  early  English  authorities  have  led 
to  much  imagrinative  writing-  on  the  part  of  historians.  Thus  Green  begins 
a  part  of  his  history  with  the  observation:  "Of  the  temper  and  life  of  the 
folk  In  this  older  England  we  know  little,"  and  then  proceeds  to  give  minute 
details  regarding  political  and  social  organizations,  covering  several  pages. 
He  has  given  birth  to  a  school  of  historians  who  write  in  the  same  high 
falsetto. 

2  The  Anglo-Saxon  version  has  this  reference  to  Ireland: — "Igbernia  baet 
we  Scotland  hatad" — "Hibemia  which  we  call  Scotland." 

291 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

like  a  nurse's  fairy-tale,  explaining  everything,  recom- 
mencing and  breaking  off  its  phrases,  making  ten  turns 
about  a  simple  detail,  so  low  was  it  necessary  to  stoop  to 
the  level  of  this  new  intelligence,  which  had  never  thought 
or  known  anything."^  And  the  ignorance  is  such  that  the 
teacher  himself  needs  correction. 

The  arrival  of  the  Danes  merely  accentuated  a  condi- 
tion that  had  arisen  from  internal  causes  and  that  left 
the  English  almost  as  putty  in  their  hands.  The 
demoralization  wrought  by  the  terror  of  the  Danish 
sword  never  left  the  natives  till  the  time  came  when  they 
fell  an  easy  prey  to  a  handfiJ  of  Frenchmen  from  Nor- 
mandy and  Angevin.  The  picture  painted  by  Wulfstan, 
bishop  of  Worcester,  of  the  aborigines  of  the  country  is 
painful  in  the  pitifulness  of  the  degradation  it  depicts  and 
the  total  loss  of  manhood  that  had  fallen  on  the  once  fierce 
Saxons.  The  Danes,  whom  Irish  power  wielded  by  King 
Brian  had  crushed,  were  able  nevertheless  to  turn  England 
into  a  compound,  and  its  inhabitants  into  a  slave  popula- 
tion. Progress  and  learning  under  such  conditions  were 
ludicrous  dreams,  and  beneath  the  deep  of  ignorance 
which  Alfred  had  depicted  there  were  other  and  cruder 
deeps  into  which  the  unresisting  English  were  thrust  by 
their  oppressors.  It  is  hard  to  conceive  of  the  forms  of 
cruelty  which  Danish  brutality  could  have  employed  so 
to  subdue  the  English  to  moods  meeker  than  that  of  lambs 
led  to  the  slaughter.  "For  a  long  time  now,"  says 
Wulfstan  in  his  sermon  Ad  Anglos,  still  extant  in  Anglo- 
Saxon,  "there  has  been  no  goodness  among  us  either  at 
home  or  abroad,  but  there  has  been  ravaging  and  onset  on 
every  side  again  and  again.  The  English  have  now  for  a 
long  time  been  always  beaten  in  battle  and  made  great 

iTalne,  Hist  of  Eng.  Lit.,  I.  «4. 

292 


Current  of  Irish  Civilization  in  England 

cowards,  through  God's  wrath;  and  the  sea  robbers  so 
strong,  by  God's  allowance,  that  often  in  a  fight  one  of 
them  will  put  to  flight  ten  of  the  English,  sometimes  less, 
sometimes  more,  all  for  our  sins.  A  thrall  often  binds 
fast  the  thegn  who  was  his  lord  and  makes  him  a  thrall, 
through  the  wrath  of  God.  Wala  for  the  wretchedness, 
and  Wala  for  the  world-shame  which  now  the  English 
have,  all  through  God's  wrath.  Often  two  or  three  pirates 
drive  a  drove  of  Christian  men  huddled  together  from  sea 
to  sea,  out  through  the  people,  to  the  world-shame  of  us 
all,  if  we  could  a  sooth  know  any  shame  at  all,  if  we  would 
ever  understand  it  aright.  But  all  the  disgrace  we  are 
always  bearing  we  dutifully  pay  for  to  those  who  shame 
us.  We  are  for  ever  paying  them  and  they  ill  use  us 
daily.  They  harry  and  they  burn,  they  plunder  and  rob 
and  they  carry  off  to  ships ;  and  lo,  what  is  there  any  other 
in  all  these  happenings  save  the  wrath  of  God  clear  and 
plain  upon  this  people." 

6.  Irish  Authority  Gives  Way  to  French 
It  was  amid  conditions  such  as  these  that  the  Irish 
missionaries  and  schoolmen,  many  of  them  belonging  to 
the  bluest  Milesian  blood,  impelled  solely  by  supernatural 
motives,  worked  for  the  reclamation  of  the  English.  It 
is  astonishing  that  most  of  them  did  not  lose  their  lives 
surrounded  as  they  were  with  the  barbarian  lust  of  mur- 
der. On  the  Continent,  particularly  in  Germany,  many 
of  the  Irish  missionaries  met  violent  deaths.  In  England 
no  such  fate  awaited  them.  The  sentiment  of  adoration 
which  medieval  Englishmen  cherished  for  the  authorita- 
tive Irishmen  who  walked  among  them  stayed  their 
homicidal  hands  and  quelled  their  savage  yells  even  when 
thirsting  for  their  kinsmen's  blo6d.  A  rebuke  from  an 
Irish  bishop  was  often  potent  enough  to  bring  even  the 

293 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

English  kings  prostrate  at  his  feet.  Such  was  the  magic 
which  the  prestige  of  an  immemorial  civilization,  typified 
in  its  nobler  representatives,  worked  on  a  national  mind 
slowly  shedding  the  barbarism  of  ages.  To  this  spell 
which  the  Irish  will  cast  over  a  stolid,  superstitious  and 
undeveloped  people,  in  whom  a  powerful  war  hysteria 
flowed  as  a  perpetual  undercurrent,  are  we  to  look  for  the 
root  of  the  surprising  results  achieved  by  them,  results 
which  under  like  conditions  could  have  been  achieved  by 
no  other  race  under  Heaven. 

The  so-called  Norman^  Conquest  marked  the  passing  of 
Irish  authority  and  influence  over  the  English  and  the 
substitution  in  an  infinitely  harsher  and  more  strongly 
organized  form  of  French  influence  and  authority.  The 
guide,  cicerone  and  friend  gave  way  to  the  military  con- 
queror and  master.  The  hand  that  held  the  cross,  the  pil- 
grim's staff,  and  the  illuminated  manuscript  was  followed 
by  the  hand  that  wielded  the  sword  and  the  thonged  whip. 
The  apostles  of  law  and  order,  humanity  and  learning, 
were  followed  by  the  apostles  of  the  thumb  screw  and 
crucet  house,  of  Tenserie  and  the  Sachentege.  Human 
annals  contain  little  that  exceeds  in  inhumanity  the  retri- 
butions which  the  French  conquerors  of  the  English  laid 
on  the  people  they  thenceforth  trod  beneath  their  feet.^ 

1  The  men  who,  under  William  the  Conqueror,  took  England  from  the 
English,  called  themselves  and  were  called  not  Normans,  but  Francii  or 
Frenchmen,  which  was  what  they  were.  They  came  from  every  province  in 
France — Maine,  Anjou,  Poitou,  Brittany,  Ile-de-France,  Aquitaine,  Burgundy, 
Flanders — and  even  from  beyond  the  Alps  and  Pyrenees.  Among  those  who 
belonged  to  Normandy,  the  Northman  strain  had  been  merged  by  inter- 
marriage, and  Northman  speech  and  custom  had  totally  disappeared.  The 
French  conquerors  of  England  repudiated  all  kinship  with  any  Northern  or 
German  people.  They  could  be  called  Normans  chiefly  in  the  sense  that  the 
expedition  set  out  from  Normandy  under  the  Duke  of  that  province. 

2  Consult  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  in  the  reign  of  Stephen,  Anno  1137. 
Maddened  by  cruelty,  the  hapless  natives  sometimes  waylaid  their  French 
masters  and  cut  their  throats,  stripping  the  corpse  and  mutilating  the 
features  and  members  so  that  it  would  be  impossible  to  tell  whether  it  was 
French  or  English,  the  object  being  to  escape  the  fines  and  punishments  laid 
on  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  neighborhood.  It  was  then  enacted  that  the 
corpse  should  be  deemed  French  unless  a  jury  found  it  was  only  an  English- 
zaan.  This  law,  called  the  presentment  of  "EngUscherie,"  with  its  attendant 
cruelties,  lasted  to  the  reign  of  Edward  III. 

294 


Current  of  Irish  Civilization  in  England 

From  that  time  on  the  English  nation  was  represented 
by  a  slave  population  of  terror-stricken  boors  and  hinds, 
looking  up  to  their  foreign  masters  with  the  awe  with 
which  the  savage  regards  his  idol.  Little  wonder  that 
from  that  time  on  all  that  was  French  was  regarded  as 
sacrosanct  and  anointed,  and  all  that  was  Anglo-Saxon  was 
regarded  as  mean  and  base.  To  be  English  was  to  be  a 
churl  and  a  villein,  a  natural-born  clod  and  criminal,  tax- 
able and  floggable  at  will,  so  that  "it  was  considered  a 
disgrace  to  be  called  an  Englishman."^  Time  deepened 
rather  than  mitigated  the  national  degradation  till  an 
abasement  under  the  Tudors  was  reached  lower  than  that 
ever  touched  by  any  other  European  people. 

Culture  in  England  thenceforth  was  simply  French 
culture  and  even  in  a  more  modern  age  when  the  English- 
man had  gained  a  little  freedom  his  chief  method  of  im- 
proving himself  was  to  play  the  sedulous  ape  to  the 
Frenchman  as  he  had  before  played  the  sedulous  ape  to 
the  Irishman.  The  university  of  Oxford  was  simply  a 
branch,  established  by  Frenchmen,  of  the  university  of 
Paris,  which  gave  it  its  organization  and  its  professors.^ 
The  English  legal  system  and  national  organization  were 
in  reality  a  transplanted  French  system  and  transplanted 

lUt  Anglum  voeari  foret  opprobrio  (Matthew  of  Paris,  Bk.  I,  c.  12).  The 
native  English  of  both  sexes  for  quite  trivial  offenses  had  their  noses  and 
ears  cut  off  or  were  stript  naked  and  brutally  whipt  through  the  public 
streets  or  at  the  cart's  tail,  without  regard  to  tender  or  advanced  age.  This 
continued  for  centuries.  In  1597,  a  new  law,  passed  in  22  Henry  VIII,  was 
slightly  mitigated,  the  victims  being  stript  only  "from  the  middle  up- 
wards, and  whipt  till  the  body  should  be  bloody."  Lists  of  persons  whipt, 
some  of  them  aged  women  and  young  children,  were  kept  in  parish  books 
and  church  registers  (See  Bum's  Justice,  Vol.  V,  501;  Notes  and  Queries,  Vol. 
XVII,  327,  425,  568;  Book  of  Days,  I,  598-601).  Brutalities  of  this  degrading 
character  were  totally  unknown  in  Irish  law. 

2  It  is  remarkable  that  students  from  the  four  provinces  of  Ireland  were 
at  Oxford  at  a  date  almost  as  early  as  that  of  the  admission  of  the  English, 
forming  one  of  the  most  important  "Southern  Nations."  From  out  of  their 
ranks  appeared  the  most  powerful  mind  ever  known  at  Oxford,  Duns  Scotus, 
who  dying  at  thirty-four,  left  behind  a  record  of  work,  only  once  or  twice 
exceeded  in  human  history.  (See  Rashdall,  University  II,  362;  Macleane,  Pem- 
broke College,  45;  Mrs.  Green,  Making  of  Ireland  and  Its  Undoing,  266-7,  289; 
Milman,  History  of  Latin  Christianity,  VI,  466-7.) 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

French  organization,  which  gave  both  nine  tenths  of  their 
phraseology.  It  was  the  French  who  added  Romance 
elements  of  refinement  to  the  English  tongue,  to  them  for 
three  centuries  an  alien  speech,  and  raised  what  had 
remained  for  a  thousand  years  the  gross  dialect  of  clod- 
hoppers and  scullions  to  the  dignity  of  a  literary  vehicle.* 
The  architects  and  artizans  who  built  the  castles  and 
fortresses,  the  cathedrals,  abbeys  and  parish  churches  of 
England  were  French,  as  they  had  formerly  been  Irish. 
For  the  immediate  centuries  that  followed  the  conquest 
the  history  of  England  was  the  history  of  the  French 
population  of  England  and  had  hardly  any  reference  to 
the  submerged  English.  The  French  kings  of  England 
showed  little  disposition  to  live  there.  Henry  II  spent 
most  of  his  life  in  France.  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion,  dur- 
ing a  reign  of  ten  years,  spent  only  a  month  or  two  in 
England.  Magna  Carta  is  usually  represented  as  a  pre- 
eminently English  document,  and  Parliament  as  a 
preeminently  English  institution.  The  truth  is  the  En- 
glish had  about  as  much  to  do  with  the  winning  of  Magna 
Carta'  and  the  establishment  of  Parliament,  as  the  negroes 
and  red  men  of  America  had  in  the  writing  of  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  and  the  establishment  of 
Congress.  The  movement  among  the  French  in  France 
that  issued  in  the  local  parlements  of  Champagne,  Prov- 
ence, Brittany  and  Languedoc,  and  in  the  national  Parle- 
ment  or  Estates  General,  was  precisely  the  movement 
among  the  French  in  England  that  issued  in  the  Parle- 
ment  or  assembly  of  the  estates  in  England.    The  thing 

1  Chaucer,  for  example,  was  wholly  French  in  blood.  He  lived  much  abroad 
and  his  works  are  translations  and  adaptations  of  Latin,  French  and  Italian 
models.  Piers  the  Plowman  represented  the  highest  flight  to  which  the 
liative  muse  attained. 

2  The  rights  thus  won  by  the  French  were  completely  surrendered  without 
a  flght  to  Kenry  VIII  by  the  English  three  centuries  later. 

296 


Current  of  Irish  Civilization  in  England 

as  well  as  the  name  was  entirely  French.  And  so  through 
the  whole  national  life  of  England.  It  is  only  by  the 
accident  of  a  defeated  sovereign's  fear  that  his  English 
province  might  go  the  way  of  Normandy  and  Guienne 
that  England  is  not  to-day  a  French  province,  as  it  long 
was,  instead  of  an  English  kingdom. 

In  1 169,  Diarmuid,  King  of  Leinster,  a  bad  character 
who  had  been  driven  out  of  Ireland,  after  promises  of 
vassalage  to  Henry  II  in  France  if  he  would  help  him  to 
recover  his  kingdom,  brought  over  from  Wales  to  Ireland 
some  Cambro-French*  knights  and  men-at-arms  led  by 
Richard  de  Clare,  earl  of  Striguil.^  King  Diarmuid  with 
their  help  won  a  number  of  battles  and  by  way  of  reward- 
ing his  foreign  auxiliaries  bestowed  the  hand  of  his 
daughter  Eva  on  Richard  and  lands  and  dignities  on 
others  of  his  followers.  Henry  II  crossed  to  Ireland  in 
1 171  and  entertained  and  was  entertained  by  a  number 
of  Irish  princes.  There  was  no  battle  and  the  entire  pro- 
ceedings appear  to  have  been  amicable.  Yet  these  events 
have  been  described  as  a  Norman  conquest^  of  Ireland 
and  even  as  an  "English  conquest."*  The  position  in  the 
country  attained  by  this  first  wave  of  Cambro-French 
emigres  represented  the  high  water-mark  of  foreign  in- 
fluence in  Ireland  during  the  next  400  years.    Once  settled 

1  The  Norman-French,  who  would  as  soon  have  married  into  a  negro  as 
Into  a  native  Anglo-Saxon  family,  married  freely  with  the  Welsh.  Thus 
the  FItzHenrys,  FitzGeralds,  d©  Barries,  de  Cogans  and  FitzStephens,  who 
emigrated  to  Ireland  were  a  mixture  of  French  and  Welsh,  being  descended 
from  Nesta,  daughter  of  Rhys  Ap  Tudor,  Prince  of  South  Wales.  (Giraldus 
Cambrensis,  p.  183,  genealogical  table.)  For  a  remarkable  Norman  com- 
parative estimate  of  the  Welsh  and  English  see  p.  86  note.  See  also  Macaulay, 
History  of  EIngland,  I,  15. 

2  This  man  who  couldn't  spealc  a  sentence  in  English  has  been  absurdly 
srlven  the  English  name  of  "Strongbow,"  never  heard  of  till  four  centuries 
after  his  death  and  then  in  an  annotation  of  Camden — dictus  Strongbow,  for- 
tis  arcus. 

3  Giraldus,  who  was  the  first  to  use  the  term  "conquest"  (expugnatio) 
repeats  a  prophecy  to  the  effect  that  Ireland  would  never  be  really  conquered 
till  just  before  the  Day  of  Judgment.     (Opera,  V,  p.  385.) 

*  This  is  one  of  the  numerous  inanities  in  D' Alton's  History  of  Ireland. 

297 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

in  Ireland  the  foreigner  began  to  lose  his  foreignness^ 
and  became  merged  in  the  brilliant  life  around  him.  The 
first  settlers  married  the  daughters  of  Irishmen  of  equal 
station,  and  the  generation  that  followed  were  born  Irish- 
men with  kinsmen  over  all  Ireland.  They  abandoned 
the  French  for  the  Irish  tongue,  took  to  Irish  apparel  and 
custom,  appealed  from  the  meannesses  of  the  feudal  to 
the  fairness  and  equity  of  Irish  law,  and  entered  battle 
as  Irish  clansmen  and  followers  of  Irish  kings  with  Irish 
battle-cries  on  their  lips.  The  destruction  of  Irish  records 
has  given  the  records  of  the  foreign  colony  or  pale  in 
Ireland  a  value  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  importance. 
There  was  not  a  period  during  these  400  years  when  that 
foreign  colony  might  not  have  been  extirpated  or  expelled. 
But  the  truth  is  that  Ireland  had  nothing  but  welcome  for 
the  foreigners — Norman,  French,  Cambro-French,  and 
Flemish,  attended  at  times  by  their  English  serfs — who 
sought  a  home  on  her  soil,  tolerating  even  their  local 
courts  and  "parliaments" — really  obscure  meetings  of 
foreign  officials — ^where  at  a  later  date  immigrant  "En- 
glish Hobbes"  as  the  older  settlers  called  them — buddagh 
Sassenach  ("Saxon  clowns  or  yokels")  was  the  Irish 
sobriquet — passed  "Statutes  of  Kilkenny"  against  the  Irish 
enemy,  whose  lands  they  coveted  and  whose  free  tenure 
they  envied.  This  Irish  hospitality  was  true  wisdom,  for 
before  the  sixteenth  century  the  foreign  pale  or  colony 
in  Ireland  had  almost  ceased  to  be.^ 

1  The  "foreigners  had  given  up  their  foreignness  for  a  pure  mind,  their 
Burliness  for  good  manners,  and  their  stubbornness  for  sweet  mildness,  and 
who  had  given  up  their  perverseness  for  hospitality"  (Tribes  and  Customs  of 
Hy  Many,  ed.,  O'Donovan,  1843,  p.  136),  c.  1315. 

2  The  futile  expedition  of  Richard  II  (1399)  was  the  only  one  ever  at- 
tempted by  the  English  against  the  Irish  people  before  the  sixteenth  century. 
Art  MacMurrough,  King  of  Leinster,  told  Richard  that  he  (King  Art)  "would 
not  submit,  that  he  was  the  rightful  King  of  Leinster  and  would  never  cease 
from  war  and  the  defense  of  his  coimtry  until  his  death,  and  that  the  wish 
to  deprive  him  of  it  by  conquest,  was  unlawful"  (Gilbert's  Viceroys,  p.  281). 
Leinster  alone  proved  more  than  a  match  for  Richard,  whose  expedition  was 
a  disastrous  failure  and  indeed  proved  a  prime  factor  in  depriving  him  of 
the  English  crown. 

298 


Current  of  Irish  Civilization  in  England 

The  idea  of  conquering  Ireland — and  indeed  Wales  and 
Scotland  as  well — first  took  practical  shape  in  the  bloody- 
minded  brain  of  Henry  VIII,  a  crowned  megalomaniac 
brute  and  savage,  the  strangler,  hangman,  disemboweler, 
mutilator  and  burner,  amid  unending  shrieks  to  Heaven, 
of  tens  of  thousands  of  the  unresisting  English,*  the  first 
to  assume  the  style  of  "Your  Majesty"  and  the  title  of 
King  of  Ireland,  and  the  first  English  imperialist,  whose 
diversion  it  was  to  set  one  half  of  his  panic-stricken  sub- 
jects spying  upon,  torturing  and  killing  the  other  half, 
his  reign  reading  like  a  monstrous  tragedy  of  CEdipodean 
incests  and  Thyestean  feasts.  The  war  of  conquest  set  on 
foot  by  the  Tudor  despot  was  inconclusively  concluded  by 
William  of  Orange  at  Aughrim  over  a  century  and  a 
half  later.^  The  sixteenth  century  opened  in  calm  for  Ire- 
land. The  Irish  and  the  English  had  lived  side  by  side  for 
over  a  thousand  years.  Fortune  up  to  that  time  had  greatly 
favored  the  smaller  island,  in  which  despotism  appeared 
to  be  unable  to  breathe,  and  in  the  sixteenth  century  the 
difference  between  Ireland  and  England  in  population 
and  resources  any  more  than  in  area  was  not  great. 
Almost  as  many  people  spoke  Irish  as  spoke  English.  In 
the  opening  calm  of  that  century  there  was  nothing  to 
forecast  the  unparalleled  tragedy  that  was  to  fall  on  the 
one,  or  the  unparalleled  territorial  loot  that  was  to  fall  to 
the  other.  The  words  "empire"  and  "imperial"  had  an 
uncanny  fascination  for  Henry  VIII,^  who  lived  the  first 

1  Henry  is  computed  to  have  put  72,000  persons  to  death.  There  was  only 
one  step  from  the  lash  and  the  branding  iron  to  the  g-allows  and  disemhowel- 
ment,  and  he  even  enacted  a  Boiling  Act  under  -which  people  were  boiled  alive 
et  Smithfleld. 

2  The  physical  conquest  of  Ireland,  begun  in  1534,  the  combined  forces  of 
England,  Scotland  and  Wales  failed  to  bring  to  an  end  before  1G91,  a  period 
of  157  years.  This  is  an  illuminating  commentary  on  talk  about  a  conquest 
by  Henry  II,  in  which  no  battle  was  fought. 

3  He  wanted  to  begin  by  uniting  Wales  and  Scotland  with  England  and 
calling  himself  Emperor   (and  Pope)  of  Great  Britain. 

299 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

part  of  his  life  in  gaiety  and  arrogance,  and  the  latter 
part  swollen  to  a  dreadful  bulk  of  corpulency  with  run- 
ning and  loathsomely  smelling  sores,  and  who  died  hor- 
ribly the  death  of  persecutors,  such  as  Lactantius 
describes.  A  future  historian  of  empires  may  have  cause 
to  read  a  moral  and  draw  an  analogy  from  the  course  and 
end  of  persecuting  empires  and  the  careers  and  fate  of 
the  persecutors  who  first  conceived  them  and  endowed 
them  with  their  spirit. 


Forcubus  caichduini  imhia  arrath  inlebran  colli 
aratardda  bend  act  forainmain  in  truagain  rodscribai. — 
Colophon  from  the  Book  of  Deir,  ninth  century. 


300 


APPENDICES 


APPENDIX  A 
THE  ENGLISH  SLAVE  POPULATION  IN  IRELAND 

THE  relative  positions  of  the  Irish  and  English  peo- 
ples in  respect  to  education,  commerce,  wealth  and 
civilized  development,  are  indicated  more  clearly 
than  through  any  other  criterion  by  the  large  English 
slave  population  in  Ireland.  Slaves  were  numerous  in 
medieval  Ireland  and — the  subject  is  worth  dwelling 
upon,  for  English  historians  have  shrouded  the  facts  in 
a  disguise  of  specious  phrases — most  of  these  slaves  were 
English  men  and  women,  English  boys  and  girls,  traded 
for  export  to  slave  dealers  in  English  ports  by  their  own 
degraded  fathers  and  mothers  and  other  more  powerful 
relatives. 

There  is  little  testimony  more  conclusive  of  Ireland's 
national  and  social  prestige  in  those  ages  than  the  fact 
that  while  foreign  slaves,  and  particularly  English  slaves, 
were  so  plentiful  in  the  island,  there  is  no  record  of  Irish- 
men being  traded  as  slaves  either  in  Britain  or  on  the  Con- 
tinent. That  Irishmen  should  always  have  been  the  pur- 
chasers and  never  the  purchased  in  this  traffic  of  human 
merchandise,  which  naturally  represented  then  as  in  other 
ages  the  most  valuable  of  personal  property,  reveals  to 
us  in  convincing  fashion  the  enormous  width  of  the  gulf, 
indicated  in  many  other  directions,  that  separated  the 
immemorial  Irish  nation  from  the  welter  of  tribes  on 
the  other  side  of  the  channel. 

301 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

The  non-free  population  in  Ireland  was  divided  into 
three  classes:  Bothach,  Sencleithe,  and  Fudir.  The 
individuals  belonging  to  the  first  two  divisions  were  herds- 
men, laborers,  squatters  on  waste  lands,  horseboys,  hang- 
ers-on, and  jobbers  of  various  kinds — all  poor  and 
'dependent.  But  they  enjoyed  the  great  advantage  of 
belonging  to  the  clan  tho  debarred  from  most  of  its  privi- 
leges. 

The  third  class — the  Fudirs — constituted  the  lowest  of 
the  three.  They  were  not  members  of  the  clan  and  con- 
sequently had  no  right  of  residence,  tho  they  were  per- 
mitted by  the  chief  to  live  within  the  territory  from 
which  they  might  be  expelled  at  any  moment.  The 
Fudirs  themselves  were  again  divided  into  two  classes, 
a  higher  and  a  lower,  called  saer-fudir  and  daer-fudirs 
(free  and  bond).  The  daer-fudirs,  the  lowest  and  most 
dependent  of  all,  consisted  of  escaped  criminals,  captives 
taken  in  battle  or  raids,  convicts  respited  from  death,  and 
purchased  slaves.  The  fudirs  were  nearly  all  strangers 
or  foreigners,  and  it  was  to  this  class  that  the  English 
slaves  in  Ireland  belonged.^ 

The  Anglo-Saxons  were  a  leading  slave  race  of  the 
Middle  Ages  and  in  respect  to  the  civilized  world  of 
Ireland,  Gaul  and  Italy,  occupied  a  position  akin  to  that 
of  the  colored  aborigines  of  Africa  in  respect  to  the  civi- 
lized nations  of  Europe  in  recent  times.  Traffic  in  English 
slaves  was  as  prevalent  throughout  Europe  in  the  Middle 
Ages  as  negro  slavery  became  in  Africa  and  America  at 
a  later  epoch,  but  in  no  land  were  English  slaves  more 
numerous  than  in  Ireland.  The  traffic  continued  till  at 
least  the  thirteenth  century  and  probably  dated  back  to 
the  fifth,  for  references  to  widespread  Anglo-Saxon  slav- 

1  Joyce,  Social  History,  I,  162-166. 

302 


Appendices 

ery  are  numerous  in  the  sixth.^  In  Irish  medieval  litera- 
ture there  are  numerous  references  to  slaves  brought  from 
beyond  the  sea  to  Ireland,  most  of  whom  must  have  been 
English.  In  the  sixth  century  Jewish  slave  dealers  were 
in  the  habit  of  selling  in  Gaul,  Italy  and  other  countries 
slaves  obtained  in  England.  The  story  is  well  known  of 
the  English  slaves  in  the  market  place  at  Rome  whose  fair 
hair  and  complexion,  differing  from  those  of  the  South, 
drew  Gregory's  attention.  The  Pope  also  in  595  wrote 
to  Candidus,  a  priest  in  Gaul,  enjoining  him  to  redeem 
English  slaves  who  might  be  trained  as  monks  and  sent 
to  Rome,'  and  some  commentators  believe  that  it  was  this 
letter  of  Gregory's  that  gave  rise  to  the  obviously 
apocryphal  angel-story  of  the  slave  boys  in  Rome.  St. 
Eligius  of  France  is  recorded  as  buying  and  ransoming 
English  slaves.  St.  Aidan,  the  apostle  of  Northumbria, 
as  we  have  seen,  used  most  of  his  superfluous  wealth  in 
the  redemption  of  Anglo-Saxon  males  and  made  some  of 
them  auxiliaries  in  the  regeneration  of  the  aborigines  of 
the  island. 

Slaves  began  to  be  exported  from  England  almost  from 
the  period  of  its  settlement  by  tribes  from  Germany. 
There  had  been  a  certain  amount  of  traffic  in  British 
slaves  during  the  Roman  period,  as  the  biographies  of 
Irishmen  bearing  on  that  period  bear  witness,  but  this 
earlier  traffic  was  on  a  scale  very  much  smaller  than  that 
which  the  English  traffic  attained.  Selling  men  beyond  the 
seas  is  mentioned  in  the  Kentish  laws  as  an  alternative  to 

1  "William  of  Malraesbury  talks  of  the  practice  (morem)  as  "vetustls- 
simum"  "inveteratum,"  and  handed  down  from  ancestors  to  their  descend- 
ants (a  proavis  in  nepotes  transfusum)   (Anglia  Sacra  II,  p.  258). 

2  "We  desire  thy  Love  to  procure  with  the  money  thou  mayst  receive 
clothing  for  the  poor  or  English  boys  of  about  seventeen  or  eighteen  years 
of  age,  who  may  profit  by  beiftg  given  to  God  in  monasteries"  (Epistles  of 
St.  Gregory,  Book  VI,  Ep.  VII,  Nicene  and  Post  Nicene  Fathers,  Vol.  XII,  p. 
190). 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

capital  punishment.  The  dooms  of  Ina  forbade  the  men 
of  Wessex  to  sell  a  countryman  beyond  the  seas,  even  if 
he  were  really  a  slave  or  justly  condemned  to  slavery: 
"If  anyone  sell  his  own  countryman,  bond  or  free,  the 
he  be  guilty,  overseas,  let  him  pay  for  them  according  to 
his  wer."^  The  place  overseas  from  Wessex  was  mani- 
festly Ireland,  The  prohibitions  are  repeated  down  to 
Ethelred's  "that  Christian  men  and  condemned  be  not 
sold  out  of  the  country,  especially  into  a  heathen  nation; 
and  be  it  jealously  guarded  against  that  those  souls  perish 
not  that  Christ  bought  with  his  own  life" — in  which  we 
sense  the  admonition  of  Irish  clerics  against  a  traffic  dis- 
honoring alike  to  the  principals  and  the  victim.  They 
are  more  forcibly  exprest  in  the  canons  and  penitentials 
of  the  English  Church.  Archbishop  Theodore  prohibited 
the  selling  of  children  into  slavery  by  parents  after  the 
age  of  seven.  Ecgberht  of  York  threatened  with  excom- 
munication on  the  sale  of  a  child  or  of  kinsfolk. 

The  Danes,  after  they  had  defeated  the  English,  herded 
them  together,  and  attached  them  to  themselves  as  body 
slaves  and  personal  property.  A  great  many  of  them 
they  sent  over  the  sea  and  delivered  to  continental  deal- 
ers. William  of  Malmesbury  says  of  Canute's  sister, 
the  wife  of  Godwin,  that  "she  was  in  the  habit  of  pur- 
chasing companies  of  slaves  in  England  and  sending  them 
into  Denmark;  more  especially  girls  whose  good  looks 
and  age  made  them  of  greater  value  that  she  might 
accumulate  money  by  this  horrible  traffic.'"  The  invad- 
ing French  from  Normandy  and  the  other  French  prov- 
inces, following  the  Danes,  took  advantage  of  the  general 
degradation  of  the  country  and  the  wealth  of  Franco-Nor- 

1  Stubbs,  Select  Charters,  p.  61. 

2De  Gestis  Regum,  Lib.  II,  c.   13   (Giles  edition,  p.  222). 


Appendices 

man  nobles  was  said  sometimes  to  spring  from  the  breed- 
ing of  Anglo-Saxon  slaves  for  the  market.^ 

The  testimony  bearing  on  the  traffic  points  to  an  inde- 
scribable demoralization  among  the  English  and  brings 
home  some  of  the  herculean  difficulties  with  which  the 
Irish  missionaries  had  to  contend  in  a  milieu  where  brutal 
and  suicidal  excess  had  resulted  in  dissolving  the  foun- 
dations of  even  natural  virtue  and  decency.  Thus  Wil- 
liam of  Malmesbury,  describing  conditions  in  England, 
remarks:  "Unnatural  as  was  such  conduct  it  was  often 
the  fact  that  heads  of  families,  after  seducing  the  women 
of  their  household,  either  sold  them  to  other  men  or  to 
houses  of  bad  repute."^  In  the  Latin  life  of  Wulstan, 
bishop  of  Worcester  (d.  1022)  founded  on  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  life  of  Coleman,  we  are  told  that  it  was  a  com- 
mon sight  all  over  England  to  see  long  trains  of  young 
men  and  women  of  the  English  chained  together  and 
marched  by  slave  dealers  to  the  neighboring  ports  to  be 
shipt  to  Ireland  as  slaves.^  The  unfortunates  were 
purchased  by  slave-drivers  from  their  own  families  and 
were  treated  with  a  cruelty  that  made  them,  as  the  biog- 
raphy tells  us,  an  object  of  pity  even  to  the  barbarous 
West  Saxons  through  whose  villages  they  were  marched 
on  their  way  to  the  sea/  The  native  vendors  of  the  girls 
were  in  the  habit  of  putting  them   in  a  condition  of 

1  The  Irish  Scots  in  North  Britain,  in  line  with  their  compatriots  in  Ire- 
land, were  large  owners  of  English  slaves.  Thus  Symeon  of  Durham  (Historia 
Regum,  II,  192)  observes:  "Scotland  was  filled  with  slaves  and  handmaids 
of  the  English  race  so  that  even  to  this  day  cannot  be  found,  I  do  not  say  a 
hamlet,  but  even  a  hut,  without  them."  Symeon  explains  this  large  slave 
population  by  the  captures  of  prisoners  after  the  Battle  of  Carman  (1018) 
in  the  course  of  which  the  Irish  forces  in  Scotland  inflicted  a  terrible 
defeat  on  the  English;  but  the  explanation  is  obviously  insuflUcient.  The  greater 
number  of  the  slaves  must  have  come  from  trading  between  the  Irish  in 
Scotland  and  the  English. 

2De  Gestis  Regum,  Lib.  Ill   (Giles,  ed.,  p.   279). 

3  Videres  et  gemeres  concatenates  sunibus  miserorum  ordines  et  utriusque 
sexus  adolescentes   (Anglia  Sacra  II,  p.  258). 

4  Barbaris  miserationi  essent  (Ibid.). 

21  305 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of   Britain 

pregnancy  in  the  hope  that  they  might  thus  fetch  a  higher 
price  from  the  Irish  merchants  and  owners  of  estates  to 
whom  they  were  to  be  consigned/  The  commerce  was 
brisk — ''day  after  day  they  were  exposed  for  sale,  and 
day  after  day  they  were  sold."^ 

Writers  like  William  of  Malmesbury  make  it  clear 
that  there  were  numerous  slave-markets  throughout 
England,  and  numerous  ports  whence  the  slaves  were 
shipt,  but  Bristol,  being  directly  opposite  Ireland  where 
families  were  habituated  to  the  use  and  ownership  of 
English  slaves,  and  being  convenient  to  the  aborigines 
of  the  English  hinterland  who  served  as  merchandise  in 
the  traffic,  was  the  chief  port  of  embarkation.^  It  appears 
that  the  Irish  and  continental  merchants  were  able  to  pay 
three  or  four  times  the  rate  that  ruled  in  England  where 
the  native  chattel  was  cheap  and  where  poverty  was  rife. 
The  traffic  appeared  quite  the  natural  thing  to  the  English 
themselves,  who  knew  no  better  and  who  resented  the  efforts 
to  rid  them  of  a  vice  which  brought  them  profit.  Franco- 
Norman  writers  are  however  unmeasured  in  their  pro- 
tests and  in  their  expressions  of  horror  over  it,  and  par- 
ticularly over  the  depravity  involving  so  many  unnatural 
forms  of  vice.* 

The  canker  had  eaten  its  way  into  the  national  life  at 
an  early  date  so  that  even  church  dignitaries  thought 
themselves  justified  in  enslaving  their  compatriots.    Thus 

1  Ancillasque  prius  ludibrio  lecti  habitas  jamque  praegnantes  venum  pro- 
ponebant    (Ibid.), 

2  Cotidie  prostitui,  cotidle  venitari  (Ibid.). 

3  Vicus  est  maritimus  Brichstou  dlctus,  a  quo  rector  cursu  in  Hibemiam 
transmittitur,  ideoque  illius  terrae  barbariei  accomodus.  Hujus  indigenae 
cum  caeteris  ex  Anglia  cause  mercimontii  saepae  in  Hibemiam  annavigant.  .  . 
Homines  enim  ex  omni  Anglia  coemptos  majoris  spe  quaestus  in  Hibemiam 
distrahebant.      (Anglia  Sacra  II,  p.  258.) 

4  Facinus  execrandum,  dedecus  miserabile,  nee  belluini  affectus  memorea 
homines,  necessitudines  suas,  ipsum  postremo  sanguinem  suam  servltutl  ad- 
dicere.     (Anglia  Sacra  II,  p.  258.) 

306 


Appendices 

we  find  Boniface  writing  to  Fortheri,  bishop  of  Sher- 
borne, supporting  the  request  of  a  man  named  Eppa  for 
the  release  of  the  latter's  sister  who  had  been  kept  in 
bondage  (captivae  puellae)  by  Beorwald,  abbot  of  Glas- 
tonbury, and  offering  a  ransom  of  thirty  solidi  for  her 
emancipation  in  order  that  she  might  spend  the  rest  of  her 
life  among  her  own  people  instead  of  in  slavery.^ 

The  contemporary  Irish  literature  bearing  on  the  traf- 
fic is  copious  and  it  supplements  and  illustrates  the  testi- 
mony from  outside  sources.  Thus  the  Leabar  na  g-Ceart, 
a  remarkable  tenth  century  Irish  work  containing  ele- 
ments very  much  older  and  throwing  a  flood  of  light  on 
medieval  forms  of  revenue  in  Ireland,  has  repeated  refer- 
ences to  slaves  brought  into  Ireland  from  over  the  sea, 
describing  them  for  the  most  part  as  "foreigners  without 
Gaelic,"  that  is,  foreigners  who  could  not  speak  Irish. 
From  one  reference  it  would  appear  that  the  ancestors  of 
the  family  of  Ua  Dubhlaighe,  Anglicized  O'Dooley,  were 
large  owners  of  English  slaves: 

Entitled  is  the  stout  king  of  Fera  Tulach 
To  six  steeds  from  the  middle  of  boats, 
\  Six  swords,  six  red  shields 

And  six  foreigners  without  Gaedhealga  ^  (Irish). 

Fera  Tulach  has  the  meaning  of  "men  of  the  hills"  and 
is  the  name  now  applied  to  the  barony  of  Feartullagh,  in 
Westmeath.  After  the  establishment  of  surnames  the 
chief  family  in  this  territory  took  the  surname  of  Ua 
Dubhlaighe.^ 

Another  reference  shows  that  English  slaves  figured  in 

1  Jaffe,  Mon.  Mag^.  7.  In  another  letter  to  Cuthbert,  archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, Boniface  severely  animadverts  on  the  practice  of  English  pilgrimages 
to  Rome  and  the  frailty  of  the  females  taking  part  in  them,  declaring  that 
as  a  result  there  was  hardly  a  city  in  Lombardy  or  France  that  had  not  an 
English  prostitute.      (Haddan  and  Stubbs,  iii,   381.) 

2  Leabar  na  g-Ceart,  or  Book  of  Rights,  translated  by  O'Donovan,  p.  181. 

3  See  also  O'Hart,  Irish  Pedigrees,  under  Ua  Dubhlaighe  or  Dooley. 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

the  stipends  presented  by  the  monarch  of  Ireland  to  the 
provincial  and  subsidiary  kings: 

The  stipend  of  the  king  of  Brugh-righ 

From  the  King  of  Eire  (Ireland)  without  sorrow 

Ten  tunics,  brown  red 

And  ten  foreigners  without  Gaedhealga.  ^ 

Again  among  the  stipends  of  the  king  of  Cashel  to  the 
kings  of  his  territories  we  have: 

Eight  bondmen,  eight  brown-haired  women 
To  the  of  the  Deise,  and  ten  ships. 
Eight  shields,  eight  swords  for  wounding, 
And  eight  horses  (brought)  across  the  green  sea.  ^ 

Among  the  payments  and  stipends  of  the  king  of 
Aileach  to  his  chieftainries  and  tribes  for  refection  and 
escort  enumerated  in  the  Leabhar  na  g-Ceart  are  given: 

Entitled  is  the  king  of  Cineal  Aedha 

To  five  shields,  five  slender  swords. 

Five  bondmen  (brought)  over  the  bristling  surface  of  the  sea 

Five  fair-haired,  truly  fine  women.  ' 

Other  stipends  for  the  king  of  Aileach  are  mentioned: 

Entitled  is  the  king  of  Inis  Eoghain 

To  six  bondmen — no  great  gratuity, 

Seven  steeds,  six  women  (brought)  over  the  great  sea, 

Seven  beautiful  horns  for  drinking.  * 

In  view  of  the  evidence  given  by  English  chroniclers 
there  can  be  hardly  any  doubt  that  these  foreign  slaves 
"without  Gaelic"  were  all  or  nearly  all  English,  and  the 
numerous  references  to  them,  which  could  be  greatly 
added  to,  give  us  an  idea  of  the  volume  of  the  traffic. 
Irish  missionaries  in  England  and  occasional  decent 
Englishmen  did  what  they  could  to  restrain  the  evil,  which 

1  Leabar  na  g-Ceart,  translated  by  O'Donovan,  p.  87. 

2  Leabar  na  g-Ceart,  p.  73. 

3  Page  131. 
*Page  133. 

308 


Appendices 

attained  dimensions  so  notorious  that  even  the  distant 
pope  had  to  take  a  hand  in  denouncing  it.  Thus  the 
lesson  of  the  feast  of  St.  Wulstan  tells  us  that  he  was 
able,  shortly  before  the  conquest,  to  "bring  the  citizens 
of  Bristol  to  a  better  mind,  who  in  spite  of  king  and 
pope,  had  persisted  in  the  nefarious  practise  of  selling 
their  own  children  into  slavery."^ 

The  truth  is  that  Wulstan  did  not  cure  them  and  the 
traffic  continued  long  after  his  death.  Anselm,  the  Pied- 
montese  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  successor  to  his 
countryman,  Lanfranc,  likewise  worked  in  vain  to  cure 
the  evil,  tho  doubtless  they  all  helped  to  abate  it. 

One  obstacle  to  the  extinction  of  the  traffic  was  that 
the  taxes  on  it  brought  money  into  the  royal  exchequer. 
With  respect  to  its  supposed  cessation  William  of 
Malmesbury  says:^  "The  credit  for  this  transaction  I  do 
not  know  whether  to  attribute  to  Lanfranc  or  to  Wulstan, 
who  would  scarcely  have  induced  the  king,  reluctant 
from  the  profit  it  produced  him,  to  this  measure,  had  not 
Lanfranc  commended  it,  and  Wulstan,  powerful  through 
the  sanctity  of  his  character,  commended  it  by  episcopal 
authority.'" 

According  to  the  tract  on  Ui  Maine,  the  patrimony 
in  Connaught  of  the  Ua  Ceallaigh,  or  O'Kelly  family, 
preserved  in  the  Book  of  Leacan,*  the  king  of  Ui  Maine 
was  entitled  to  ten  steeds,  ten  foreigners  (slaves),  ten 
standards,  and  ten  mantles  (mantals)  to  be  paid  by  the 

1  The  lesson  is  taken  from  the  Coleman  and  Malmesbury  life,  reproduced 
in  Angrlia  Sacra  II,  241-270. 

2  De  Gestis  Regum,  Lib.  III. 

3  The  same  author  elsewhere  informs  us  that  the  kings  of  Ireland 
bestowed  many  favors  on  Wulstan,  probably  because  of  his  efforts  against  the 
slave  trade  and  its  accompanying  evils,  for  the  Irish  princes  on  other 
occasions  gave  evidence  of  their  feeling  that  the  traffic  was  dishonoring  to 
those  who  bought  and  owned  slaves  apart  from  the  degradation  to  the 
unfortunates  themselves.     (Anglia  Sacra  II,  249.) 

i  See  Tribes  and  Customs  of  Hy-Many,  pp.  92,  93. 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

King  of  Connaught.  As  this  differs  from  the  subsidy 
mentioned  by  the  Leabhar  na  g-Ceart^  O'Donovan  con- 
cludes that  it  belongs  to  a  later  period  and  was  modeled 
on  the  exactions  of  the  Norman  invaders.^  So  that  it 
would  appear  that  the  Ua  Ceallaigh  or  O'Kelly  family  of 
Ui  Maine  continued  owners  of  English  slaves  even  after 
the  twelfth  century  and  the  decree  of  the  Synod  of 
Armagh. 

The  Synod  of  Armagh,  after  the  appearance  of  the 
Norman  and  Angevin  French  in  Ireland  under  Henry  II, 
attributed  this  foreign  intrusion  to  the  sin  of  slave  dealing 
and  counseled  that  all  the  English  slaves  throughout  the 
country  the  ownership  of  whom  was  claimed  by  the  Nor- 
man French  should  be  emancipated.  This  event  occurred 
in  the  year  1172  and  is  noteworthy  as  one  of  the  first 
recorded  emancipations  of  slaves  in  modern  history.  At 
this  synod  ''the  poets  and  bishops  of  Ireland  were  gath- 
ered to  Armagh,  and  there  they  considered  what  was 
the  cause  of  the  plague  of  outlanders  upon  them."  This 
referred  to  the  interference  of  the  Norman  French  two 
years  before.  "This  they  all  understood',  that  it  was 
because  of  buying  children  from  the  English,  for  the 
English,  when  they  were  in  want  of  wealth,  used  to  sell 
their  children  to  the  Irish  (as  slaves) .  And  God  does  not 
inflict  more  punishment  on  him  who  sells  his  children 
than  on  him  who  buys  them.  They  therefore  counseled 
that  all  the  English  they  held  in  bondage  should  be  let 
go  free.    And  thus  it  was  done."^ 

The  evidence  is  that  English  slaves  in  Ireland  were 
humanely  treated.     The  number  of  English  slaves  in 

1  Page  115. 

2  Preface,  Leabar  na  g-Ceart,  XVIII. 

3  Irish  Abridgment  of  Expugnatio  Hibernica,  ed.,  Stokes.  See  English 
Hist.  Review,  1905,  p.  87;  Mrs.  Green,  Making  of  Ireland  and  Its  Undoing, 
p.  249. 

310 


Appendices 

Ireland  appears  to  have  been  one  of  the  reproaches  leveled 
against  Ireland  by  Henry  II  and  other  Normans,  but 
consider  how^  the  French  themselves  handled  the  English 
in  England.  "They  greatly  opprest  the  w^retched  peo- 
ple by  making  them  w^ork  at  these  castles  and  when  the 
castles  were  finished  they  filled  them  with  devils  and 
evil  men.  Then  they  took  those  whom  they  suspected  to 
have  any  goods,  by  night  and  by  day,  seizing  both  men 
and  women,  and  they  put  them  in  prison  for  their  gold 
and  silver,  and  tortured  them  with  pains  unspeakable, 
for  never  were  any  martyrs  tormented  as  these  were.  They 
hung  some  up  by  their  feet  and  smoked  them  with  foul 
smoke;  some  by  their  thumbs,  or  by  the  head,  and  they 
hung  burning  things  on  their  feet.  They  put  a  knotted 
string  about  their  heads  and  twisted  it  till  it  went  into  the 
brain.  They  put  them  into  dungeons  wherein  were  adders 
and  snakes  and  toads,  and  thus  wore  them  out.  Some 
they  put  into  a  crucet-house,  that  is,  into  a  chest  that  was 
short  and  narrow  and  not  deep,  and  they  put  sharp  stones 
in  it  and  crushed  the  man  therein  so  that  they  broke  all  his 
limbs."  And  so  on.^  This  was  in  the  twelfth  century. 
In  the  sixteenth  century  the  average  Englishman  was  no 
better  off  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  punishments  which 
might  be  inflicted  upon  him.  He  was  a  serf  in  the 
twelfth  century;  he  continued  to  be  a  slave  in  the  sixteenth. 
The  chief  difiference  was  that  while  he  was  the  slave  of 
his  immediate  master  in  the  twelfth  century,  both  he  and 
his  master  were  in  the  sixteenth  century  also  slaves  of  the 
king.  Under  the  laws  of  Henry  VIII  for  small  offenses 
and  often  for  no  offense  at  all  the  Englishman  was  liable 
to  be  stript  naked  and  brutally  whipt,  on  all  fours  or 
tied  to  the  end  of  a  cart  in  the  public  market  place.    The 

1  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  anno  1137. 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

English  "gentleman  of  leisure"  likes  to  think  he  is  repre- 
sentative of  a  very  ancient  type,  but  it  is  certain  that  his 
type  was  rare  in  the  time  of  Henry  VIII.  Idleness — 
at  least  other  people's — was  in  the  view  of  Henry  the 
"mother  and  root  of  all  vices."  It  was  punished  by 
repeated  public  whippings  "till  the  body  be  bloody  by 
reason  of  such  whipping."^  A  second  ofifense  was  pun- 
ished by  further  whipping,  exposure  in  the  pillory,  and 
the  cutting-ofif  of  the  ears,  and  the  third  ofifense  was  fol- 
lowed by  "pains  and  execution  of  death  as  a  felon  and  as 
an  enemy  of  the  commonwealth."^  Social  position 
counted  for  nothing.  The  scholars  of  the  universities  of 
Oxford  and  Cambridge,  proctors,  pardoners,  prophesiers, 
leisured  travelers,  tourists,  pedlers,  lecturers,  professors 
in  "physick,  physnamye,  and  palmistry,  or  other  crafty 
science,"  and  sturdy  vagabonds,  all  looked  alike  to  Henry, 
whose  sovereign  cure  for  every  shortcoming  and  not  a 
few  virtues  was  the  bathing  of  the  body  in  blood  with 
the  universal  cat-o'-nine  tails.^  The  Englishman  could  not 
leave  his  job,  he  could  not  change  from  one  job  to  another, 
he  could  not  go  from  one  place  to  another,  he  could  not 
take  a  holiday,  he  could  not  have  an  independent  opinion 
of  his  own  about  anything,  without  facing  the  prospect 
of  a  public  flogging  or  the  pillory,  of  losing  his  ears,  or 
of  death  or  torture  in  some  horrible  form.    Now  the  old 

lActs  of  Henry  VIII,  12th  of  the  22nd;  Amended  Statute,  27  Henry  VIII, 
cap.  25.  By  an  Act  of  1547  idle  Englishmen  were  also  adjudged  to  honest 
neighbors  as  "slaves"  and  had  to  wear  rings  of  iron  on  their  arms,  necks  or 
legs. 

2  For  the  offense  of  idleness  or  unemployment,  often  repeated,  repeated 
whippings  were  provided  by  the  earlier  act.  Apparently  to  be  stript  naked 
and  publicly  whipt  was  regarded  as  less  disagreeable  than  work  by  large 
classes  of  Englishmen.  Henry,  accordingly,  with  characteristic  savagery, 
five  years  later  made  another  law  establishing  capital  punishment  for  the 
third  offense. 

3  Nearly  all  these  Acts  were  Henry's  own.  Parliament  existed  merely  to 
obey,  and  when  the  king's  name  was  mentioned  in  debate  its  members 
groveled  in  the  direction  of  his  empty  chair,  in  token  of  their  complete  sub- 
mission. 

312 


Appendices 

Irish  laws*  are  singularly  free  from  these  brutalizing  pun- 
ishments, degrading  man  below  the  level  of  brute  beasts, 
and  are  indeed  characterized  by  a  humaneness  such  as 
that  to  which  modern  sentiment  tends.  It  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  the  English  slave  under  his  highly  civilized 
Irish  masters  was  better  off  under  certain  circumstances 
than  the  average  Englishman  of  the  twelfth  or  sixteenth 
century,  when  not  even  his  thoughts  were  his  own  and 
when  mutilation  and  death  under  the  law  lurked  round 
every  corner. 

1  They  may  be  consulted  in  "Ancient  Laws  and  Institutes  of  Ireland," 
Dublin,  1865-1891,  6  vols.  See  also  Joyce's  "Social  History,"  I,  pp.  198-21S 
(Administration  of  Justice). 


313 


APPENDIX  B 
THE  IRISH  PROVINCE  OF  SCOTLAND 

IN  the  effort  to  propagate  the  notion  that  the  Gael 
formed  but  a  small  minority  of  the  population  of 
Scotland  and  that  the  great  majority  are  of  Teutonic 
descent,  a  theory  has  been  built  up  to  the  effect  that, 
despite  the  fact  that  Scotland  was  at  one  time  peopled 
by  an  Irish-speaking  people  sprung  in  the  main  from 
the  Irish  settlers  in  the  country,  that  condition  of  things 
endured  only  during  the  earlier  centuries  of  Scottish  his- 
tory, at  the  end  of  which  period  these  Celts  or  Gaels  or 
Irish  were  expelled  from  what  is  now  called  the  "low- 
lands" and  confined  to  what  is  now  called  the  "highlands" 
where  they  live  at  this  day.  The  supposed  expulsion  of 
the  Gael  is  generally  ascribed  to  some  undefined  period 
between  the  opening  of  the  eleventh  and  the  close  of  the 
twelfth  century,  following  the  French  conquest  of 
England,  which  is  credited  with  sending  many  English 
over  the  Scottish  border.  This  theory,  tho  without  a  leg 
to  stand  upon,  is  the  theory  that  holds  the  ground  in  many 
minds  to-day.  It  has  been  shown  to  be  utterly  opposed 
to  all  the  facts  of  history,  and  has  time  out  of  mind  been 
decently  buried,  only  to  be  resurrected  to  walk  the  earth 
again.  More  than  a  century  ago  Chalmers  showed  its 
absurdity  in  his  well  known  work,  "Caledonia."  Sixty 
years  ago  E.  W.  Robertson,  in  his  appendix  to  "Scotland 
under  her  Early  Kings,"  demolished  the  Theory  of  Dis- 
placement, as  he  termed  it.  Still  more  recently  Pro- 
fessor Rait  has  pointed  out  that  the  theory  is  quite  unten- 
able.   But  it  is  a  theory  useful  for  political  purposes  in 

314 


Appendices 

Great  Britain  and  as  such  has  shown  itself  possest  of 
more  than  the  proverbial  nine  lives. 

All  available  evidence  is  opposed  to  any  notion  that 
Scotland,  in  the  highlands  or  in  the  lowlands,  has  ever 
been  peopled  by  other  than  Irish  Gaels,  since  they  first 
gave  the  name  to  the  country.  Thus  long  after  the  period 
when  the  Celt  is  supposed  in  the  imagination  of  some 
historians  to  have  been  prest  back  by  an  English  or 
Teuton  population  from  the  lowlands  we  find  the  Irish 
language  spoken  all  over  the  country  as  far  as  the  south 
and  east,  we  find  men  with  Irish  names  figuring  plenti- 
fully in  legal  documents,  wc  find  the  survival  of  Irish 
laws  and  customs  and  Irish  officialdom  both  in  the  Church 
and  in  the  State,  and  we  find  Irish  place-names  outnum- 
bering other  place-names  even  to  the  English  border. 

The  Irish  Tongue  in  Scotland. — Irish  remained  the 
literary  language  of  Scotland  till  after  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  It  remained  the  spoken  language  of 
Scotland  till  the  sixteenth  century.  "Most  of  us  spoke 
Irish  a  short  time  ago,"  says  John  Mair,  or  Major,  who 
wrote  a  history  during  the  reign  of  James  IV  of  Scotland, 
who  died  in  15 13.  "Those  who  live  on  the  borders  of 
England,"  says  his  contemporary.  Hector  Boece,  "have 
forsaken  our  own  tongue  (Irish)  and  learned  English, 
being  driven  thereto  by  wars  and  commerce.  But  the 
Highlanders  remain  just  as  they  were  in  the  time  of  Mal- 
colm Canmore,  in  whose  days  we  began  to  adopt  English 
manners."  Sir  Thomas  Craig,  writing  in  the  reign  of 
James  VI  (1625),  says:  "I  myself  remember  the  time 
when  the  inhabitants  of  the  shires  of  Stirling  and  Dum- 
barton spoke  pure  Gaelic."*  Stirling  and  Dumbarton 
are  in  what  has  come  to  be  called  the  "lowlands"  of  Scot- 
land. 

iDe  Union©  Regnorum  Britannlae,  Scott.     Hist.  Soc,  trs.  Terry,  pp.  418-J. 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

Both  Wallace  (c.  1270-1305)  and  Bruce  (1274-1329) 
are  credited  with  having  been  fluent  Gaelic  speakers.  In 
Ayrshire  and  Galloway,  as  Professor  Mackinnon  notes, 
Gaelic  was  spoken  for  centuries  after  Wallace's  time,  and 
Wallace  himself  was  also  in  the  habit  of  wearing  Gaelic 
dress.  In  1434  an  Englishman  of  the  name  of  Hendry 
visited  the  lowlands  of  Moray  and  Aberdeen  and  found 
the  Irish  language  still  commonly  spoken  there.  About 
1505  Dunbar  wrote  his  Flyting  of  Dunbar  and  Kennedie. 
Walter  Kennedy  was  the  third  son  of  the  first  Lord  Ken- 
nedy, heritable  bailie  of  Carrick.  He  was  well  acquainted 
with  Irish,  then  common  in  Carrick,  on  which  account 
Dunbar  abuses  him  as  an  "Irische  bryour  baird"  and  an 
**Ersch  katherane  with  thy  polk  breik  and  rilling,"  from 
which  it  may  be  inferred  Kennedy  wore  Irish  dress.  To 
Dunbar's  abuse  of  the  Irish  language,  Kennedy  replies 
with  dignity  and  good  sense: 

"Bot  it  suld  be  all  trew  Scottis  mennis  lede  (i.  e.,  speech) ; 

It  was  the  gud  langage  of  this  land, 

And  Scota  it  causit  to  multiply  and  sprede."* 

Between  the  years  1563  and  1566  an  English  official 
drew  up  a  military  report  on  the  districts  of  Cunning- 
ham, Kyle,  and  Carrick,  with  reference  to  the  possibility 
of  their  occupation  by  an  invading  English  army.  He 
described  Carrick  as  follows:  "Inhabited  by  therle  of 
Cassils  and  his  frendes,  a  barrant  cuntree  but  for  bestiall; 
the  people  for  the  moste  part  speketht  erishe."^  In  another 
description  of  Carrick  and  other  parts  of  Scotland  in 
1577  it  was  remarked  that  "the  people's  speech  is  min- 
gled with  the  English  and  Irish,  not  far  from  Carrick- 
fergus.'"    The  same  writer  noted  that  the  people  of  the 

1  Dunbar's  Poems,  ii,  11-29. 

2  Archseologrical  and  Historical  Collections  of  Ayr  and  Wigton,  IV,  17. 

3  Calendar  of  Scottish  Papers,  V,  257. 

316 


Appendices 

Earl  of  Atholl  and  of  "Camel,"  Earl  of  Argyle,  also 
spoke  Irish.  In  1618,  John  Taylor,  the  "Water  Poet," 
visited  Scotland,  and  afterwards  recorded  his  impressions 
in  the  Pennyles  Pilgrimage.  He  says :  "I  did  go  through 
a  country  called  Glaneske.  At  night  I  came  to  a  lodging 
house  in  the  Lard  of  Eggels  Land  (i.  e.,  Edzell)  where 
I  lay  at  an  Irish  house,  the  folkes  not  being  able  to  speak 
scarce  any  English."  (P.  134,  edition  of  1630.)  Later 
he  refers  to  the  "Highlandmen,  who  for  the  most  part 
speak  nothing  but  Irish."  According  to  the  Rev.  James 
Fraser,  the  minister  of  Wardlaw,  Gaelic  was  held  "in 
esteem"  at  the  court  of  Charles  II.  Comparing  that 
court  with  Malcolm  Canmore's,  he  says:  "Formerly 
Latin  and  Irish  was  the  language  spoken  at  our  Scots 
court,  now  a  nursery  of  all  languages,  arts  and  sciences 
.  .  .  .  and  yet  the  Irish  still  in  esteem  at  court.  Franciscus 
Fraiser  was  master  of  the  languages  at  the  court;  the 
Scots  who  spoke  only  Irish  called  him  Frishalach 
Francach."* 

In  the  eighteenth  century  Irish  was  the  language  of 
the  people  in  the  Ochil  hills.  Again  about  1792  the 
minister  of  Drom  wrote  as  follows  in  the  Old  Statistical 
Account:  "Gaelic  ....  is  said  to  have  been  the  common 
language  not  only  here  .  .  .  but  even  through  the  whole 
country  of  Fife  not  above  two  or  three  generations  back." 
About  1730,  Edward  Burt,  wrote:  "The  Irish  tongue 
was,  I  may  say,  lately  almost  universal  even  in  many  parts 
of  the  Lowlands,  and  I  have  heard  it  from  several  in 
Edinburgh  that  before  the  Union  it  was  the  language  of 
the  shire  of  Fife — and  as  a  proof  they  told  me,  after 
that  event  (the  Union)  it  become  one  condition  of  an 
indenture  when  a  youth  of  either  sex  was  to  be  bound  on 

1  Wardlaw  MS.,  p.  38. 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

the  Edinburgh  side  of  the  water,  that  the  apprentice 
should  be  taught  the  English  tongue."^ 

Thus  Irish  survived  as  a  spoken  tongue  in  southern  Scot- 
land, particularly  in  Galloway  and  Carrick,  after  the  mid- 
dle of  the  eighteenth  century.  It  is  a  fact  of  great 
significance  that  the  early  Scottish  writers,  whether  they 
knew  Gaelic  or  not,  invariably  referred  to  that  tongue 
as  the  "Scottish"  and  to  the  Teutonic  dialect  of  Lothian 
as  English.  For  example  an  early  record  of  benefactions 
to  Loch  Leven  was  abridged  from  an  older  book  written 
in  Gaelic,  which  is  referred  to  as  the  idiom  of  the  Scots 
(vetus  volumen  antiquo  Scotorum  idiomate  conscrip- 
tum).^  A  charter  of  William  the  Lion  mentions  a  certain 
will,  "qui  Scottice  tobari  nuncupatur,"  an  evident  refer- 
ence to  the  Irish  word  tobar.  In  1221  certain  land  is 
mentioned,  "que  Scotice  dicitur  Abthan."^  Fordun  in 
his  description  of  Alexander  Ill's  coronation  refers  to 
Irish  as  the  Scottish  language,  and  elsewhere  in  his  his- 
tory (Book  II,  chap.  9)  he  alludes  to  the  two  languages 
spoken  in  Scotland,  the  Scottish  and  the  Teutonic  as  he 
termed  them  (Scotica  et  Theuthonica),  that  is  Irish  and 
English.  A  mid-thirteenth  century  perambulation  of  the 
bounds  of  Kingoldrum  refers  to  the  two  languages  as 
Scottish  and  English,  for  it  describes  two  places, 
"Hachethunethouer  quod  Anglice  dicitur  Midefeld"  and 
also  "Marresiam  quamdam  quae  Scotice  dicitur  Moyne- 
buch."*  Barbour,  Wyntoun,  Blind  Harry  and  Dunbar 
all  referred  to  the  language  which  they  spoke  and  wrote 
as  "Inglis,"  or  "Inglisch,"  etc.    Wyntoun,  altho  he  wrote 

1  Letters,  1.  158-9.  5th  edition. 

2  Registrum  Prioratus  S.  Andreae,  p.  113. 

3  Charters  of  Inchaffray  Abbey,  p.  44. 

*  Registrum  Vetus  de  Aberbrothoc,  p.  228. 


Appendices 

in  English,  yet  referred  to  Gaelic  as  "Scote"  or  "Scottis."^ 
We  find  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Church  of  Scot- 
land in  1570  referring  to  Gaelic  as  the  Scottish  language. 
The  Assembly  was  informed  that  a  certain  Donald 
Munro,  the  commissioner  of  Ross,  had  but  an  imperfect 
acquaintance  with  his  own  language.  Accordingly  the 
Assembly  commanded  that  assistance  should  be  given  him, 
because  he  was  not  "prompt  in  the  Scottish  tongue." 
Much  later  occasional  reference  is  made  to  Gaelic  as  the 
Scottish  language.  Thus  James  MacPherson,  of  pseudo- 
Ossianic  fame,  writing  in  1773  a  dissertation  to  his  poems, 
says:  "A  Scotchman  tolerably  conversant  in  his  own  lan- 
guage, understands  Irish  composition." 

Gavin  Douglas  was  the  first  native  Scottish  writer  to 
refer  to  the  Teutonic  speech  of  Lothian  and  Northum- 
berland as  "Scottish."  In  1513  in  the  prolog  to  his  Aeneis 
he  wrote:  "This  buik  I  dedicate  writing  in  the  lan- 
guage of  Scottis  natioun."  Before  the  close  of  the  six- 
teenth century  this  use  of  the  word  "Scottish"  became 
fairly  general,  owing,  it  would  appear,  to  the  national  sus- 
ceptibilities of  the  English-speaking  Scots,  who  not  know- 
ing the  old  language  of  Scotland  sought  to  save  their 
faces  by  a  little  word  jugglery.  Dunbar  even  went  so  far 
as  to  use  the  phrase,  "oure  Inglische."^ 

Irish  continued  the  classic  and  literary  tongue  in  Scot- 
land, the  peasantry  using  a  colloquial  dialect,  known  to 
speakers  of  English  as  Earse  (Irish),  a  broad-Scots  term 
which  is  translated  into  proper  English  now  as  Scotch- 
Gaelic.  This  provincial  dialect  was  never  written  or 
printed  until  Mr.  MacFarlane,  minister  of  Killinvir,  in 
Argyleshire,  published  in  1754  a  Scotch-Gaelic  transla- 
tion of  "Baxter's  Call  to  the  Unconverted."    This  printed 

1  Orygynale  Cronykil,  II,  112)-3. 
SGoIdyn  Targe,  line  259. 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

Scotch-Gaelic  is  in  the  main  Irish  written  phonetically 
according  to  the  rules  of  English  orthography.  So  Mr. 
MacFarlane  of  Killinvir  may  be  regarded  as  the  some- 
what recent  Homer  or  Andronicus  of  Scotch-Gaelic 
literature. 

Dr.  Johnson's  dictum  that  "there  are  not  in  the  lan- 
guage five  hundred  lines  that  can  be  proved  to  be  a  hun- 
dred years  old"  was  strictly  true  as  applied  to  Scotch- 
Gaelic.  Scotch-Gaelic  in  his  day  had  no  more  literary 
value  than  the  Yorks  or  Northumbrian  dialect  of  English. 
The  vast  and  valuable  literature  of  the  Gaels  both  of 
Ireland  and  Scotland  was  enshrined  in  the  classical  Irish 
tongue. 

Hume  says  that  the  name  of  Earse,  or  Irish,  given  by 
the  low  country  Scots  to  the  language  of  the  Scottish 
Highlanders,  is  a  certain  proof  of  the  traditional  opinion, 
delivered  from  father  to  son,  that  the  latter  people  came 
originally  from  Ireland.  Bedell's  Irish  version  of  the 
Scriptures  was  circulated  in  Scotland  with  a  glossary  from 
1690  to  1767,  and  Bishop  Carswell's  version  of  Knox's 
Prayer-book  (1567)  is  pure  Irish. 

French  Speech  and  Influence.— There  are  those 
among  the  historians  of  Scotland  who  profess  to  note 
the  birth  of  English  influence  in  that  land  following  the 
marriage  of  Malcolm  Canmore  (1057-93)  with  Margaret, 
the  expelled  Anglo-Saxon  princess.  In  this  case  the  eyes 
see  what  they  want  to  see.  Such  English  influence  as  the 
welcome  given  to  Margaret  precipitated  was  a  tenuous 
influence  and  it  died  a  speedy  death.  In  truth  English 
influence  at  that  time  was  a  thing  that  was  almost  non- 
existent. England  as  a  nation  had  been  almost  blotted 
out  by  the  Danes.  Danes  and  English  went  down  in  com- 
mon ruin  under  the  French  heel.    In  the  centuries  that 

320 


Appendices 

followed  the  influence  of  Anglo-Saxon  civilization,  if 
such  a  civilization  may  be  said  to  have  existed,  w^ould 
find  its  fittest  comparison  with  the  influence  of  negro 
civilization  under  the  slave-owners  of  the  southern  parts 
of  the  United  States.  It  is  absolutely  no  exaggeration  to 
say  that  the  English  people  living  in  England  under 
French  rule  occupied  a  lower  status  during  the  eleventh, 
twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  than  the  negro  slave 
population  in  the  southern  states  of  America  occupied 
during  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  cen- 
turies. 

As  Macaulay  puts  it:  "So  strong  an  association  is  estab- 
lished in  most  minds  between  the  greatness  of  a  sovereign 
and  the  greatness  of  the  -nation  which  he  rules,  that 
almost  every  historian  of  England  has  expatiated  with  a 
sentiment  of  exultation  on  the  power  and  splendor  of  her 
foreign  masters  (the  French  kings  of  England)  and  has 
lamented  the  decay  of  that  power  and  splendor  as  a 
calamity  to  our  country.  This  is,  in  truth,  as  absurd  as 
it  would  be  in  a  Haytian  negro  of  our  time  to  dwell 
with  national  pride  on  the  greatness  of  Lewis  the  Four- 
teenth, and  to  speak  of  Blenheim  and  Ramilies  with 
patriotic  regret  and  shame.  The  Conqueror  and  his 
descendants  to  the  fourth  generation  were  not  English- 
men; most  of  them  were  born  in  France;  they  spent  the 
greater  part  of  their  lives  in  France ;  their  ordinary  speech 
was  French;  almost  every  high  place  in  their  gift  was 
filled  by  a  Frenchman ;  every  acquisition  which  they  made 
on  the  Continent  estranged  them  more  and  more  from 
the  population  of  our  island.  One  of  the  ablest  among 
them  indeed  attempted  to  win  the  hearts  of  his  English 
subjects  by  espousing  an  English  princess.  But  by  many 
of  his  barons  this  marriage  was  regarded  as  a  marriage 

22  321 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

between  a  white  planter  and  a  quadroon  girl  would  now 
be  regarded  in  Virginia."* 

During  almost  the  two  centuries  which  followed  the 
Conqueror,  there  is  very  little  that  can  be  called  English 
history.  Those  centuries  are  almost  as  much  a  blank 
as  the  two  centuries  following  the  arrival  of  the  Saxons 
in  England.  History  in  England  in  that  period  was  sim- 
ply the  history  of  the  French  conquerors. 

French,  not  English,  moreover,  was  the  language  to 
which  Irish  first  gave  place  in  the  Scottish  court. 
Most  of  the  Gaelic  nobility  were  probably  bilingual, 
understanding,  if  not  speaking,  French,  as  well  as  their 
ancestral  Gaelic.  French  was  in  use  in  David's  court 
(1124-53)  ^s  it  certainly  was  also  in  that  of  Alexander 
III  (1249-86).  An  English  chronicler,  Walter  of  Coven- 
try, referring  to  the  events  of  the  year  121 2,  says  that  the 
more  recent  kings  of  Scotland,  i.  e.,  William  and  his 
immediate  predecessors,  profess  to  be  Frenchmen  in  race, 
manners,  language,  and  culture,  and  that  they  admit  only 
Frenchmen  to  their  friendship  and  service.''  At  a  later 
period  French  died  out  as  the  language  of  the  court,  being 
replaced  by  the  speech  of  the  Lothians. 

There  is  no  record  of  English  writing  in  Scotland  before 
John  Barbour,  who  died  in  1395,  and  Andrew  Wyntoun, 
who  died  after  1420,  wrote  their  compositions.  Since 
then  English  has  gradually  displaced  Gaelic,  tho  even 
to-day  the  old  Irish  tongue  is  in  full  vigor  over  a  large 
part  of  Scotland.  Nor  is  there  the  slightest  evidence  that 
the  defeated  English  entered  Scotland  at  this  time  in  any 
considerable  numbers.  Such  English  as  lived  in  the  coun- 
try lived  there  merely  as  hinds  and  slaves,  as  Symeon  of 
Durham  testifies,  and  being  absolutely  ignorant  and  unlet- 


1  History  of  England,  I,  15. 
SMemoriale,  II,  206. 


322 


Appendices 

tered  they  could  have  no  influence  whatever.  "Norman" 
knights  did  later  arrive,  and  these  occupied  positions 
of  influence,  acquired  land,  and  even  ascended  the 
throne  of  Scotland.  But  these  "Normans"  did  not  speak 
English.  Like  their  brethren  in  England  they  spoke 
French  and  they  wrote  both  French  and  Latin,  and  in 
the  Scottish  documents  of  the  period  they  are  called 
Frenchmen  or  Francii.  They  married  into  the  families 
of  equal  status  of  the  Irish  Scots  of  Scotland  just  as 
they  married  into  the  families  of  the  Irish  Scots  of 
Ireland.  In  Scotland  as  in  Ireland  they  became  tpsts 
Hibernis  Hiberniores.  They  dropt  French  and  learned 
to  speak  Irish  in  Scotland  just  as  they  dropped  French 
and  learned  to  speak  Irish  in  Ireland.  The  prestige  and 
influence  of  Irish  civilization,  which  conquered  and 
absorbed  the  Danes,  who  had  defeated  and  enslaved  the 
English,  likewise  conquered  and  absorbed  the  more  pow- 
erful Normans  in  Scotland  as  in  Ireland.  Till  that  period 
Irish  civilization  and  the  Irish  language  had  been  a  grow- 
ing and  prevailing  civilization  and  language  both  in 
Ireland  and  Scotland,  while  English  had  been  stagnant 
and  receding. 

Irish  Names  and  Surnames  in  Scotland.— The  evi- 
dence provided  by  the  survival  of  the  Irish  language  in 
Scotland  even  In  the  South  is  supplemented  by  the  testi- 
mony supplied  by  Irish  names  which  have  outlived  the 
language  in  the  same  region.  Thus  Malcolm  IV 
(1153-65)  and  William  the  Lion  (1165-1214)  both 
addrest  charters  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  lowland  diocese 
of  Glasgow  concerning  the  payment  of  tithes.  These 
charters  make  mention  not  only  of  French  and  English, 
but  also  of  Scots,  Galwegians  and  Strathclyde  British 
( Scoti,  Galwejenses  et  Walenses) .    We  have  an  even  later 

323 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

reference  to  the  Strathclyde  British,  for  Edward  I,  the 
English  king,  attempted  to  abolish  the  laws  of  the  Brets 
and  Scots.  Again  in  1263  an  inquisition  was  held  con- 
cerning the  lands  of  Stephen  Blantyre  in  Renfrewshire. 
The  jurors  who  decided  that  his  son  Patrick  was  the  heir 
must  have  been  the  social  equals  of  the  claimant.  They 
all  bear  Irish  names  like  Patrick  de  Blantyre  himself: 
Gille  Michel  Mac  Edolf,  Malcolmus  filius  Galle,  Done- 
canus  Mac  Edolf,  Anegous  de  Auchenros,  Dougal 
Mac  Malcolm,  Gillemor  Mac  Mohan,  Patricius  clericus, 
Patricius  Pylche,  Johannes  Mac  Galle,  Gillecrist 
Mac  Kessan,  Dogal  Mac  Houtre.^  Andrew  Lang,  who 
in  his  history  shows  the  habitual  itch  of  the  lowland  Scot 
to  make  himself  out  an  Englishman,  has  this  to  say  con- 
cerning the  people  of  Renfrew:  "Where  Anglo-Nor- 
mans obtained  lands  in  Moray,  or  Renfrewshire,  there 
seems  to  have  been  no  displacement  of  the  population; 
tho  a  Fitz-Alan  was  dominant  in  Renfrewshire  the  'good- 
men,'  or  gentry,  still  bore  Gaelic  names,  till  territorial 
names — 'of  this  or  that  place — came  into  use." 

Similarly  an  inquisition  was  held  in  1260  at  Girvan. 
The  jury  was  formed  of  three  knights  with  territorial 
surnames  and  nine  others,  all  bearing  Irish  names.^  Mr. 
Bain  also  printed  lists  of  Galwegian  prisoners  and  others 
concerned  in  the  War  of  Independence.'  Nearly  all  the 
names  are  Irish.  Lists  of  Dumfries  names,  belonging  to 
people  living  close  to  the  English  border,  have  been 
printed  in  the  Register  of  the  Privy  Council,  and  many 
of  them  are  obviously  Irish.* 

The  lists  of  names  of  those  who  were  appointed  to 
perambulate  boundaries  also  demonstrate  that  the  popu- 

1  Acts  Pari.  Scot,  I,  92. 

2  Bain's  Calendar  of  Documents,  I,  553. 

3  Ibid.,  II.  253,  301. 

4  Vols.  IV,  VI,  etc. 


Appendices 

lation  of  the  lowlands  continued  as  Irish  or  Celtic  or 
Gaelic  or  Scottish — whatever  the  term  preferred — as  it 
had  ever  been.  Twelve  of  the  names  in  a  perambulation, 
c.  1 200,  of  the  lands  of  Stobo  in  Peebleshire,  are  Irish, 
such  as  Gylmihhel,  Gillamor,  and  Gylcolm.  Again  in 
1246  the  following  persons  conducted  an  inquiry  into 
the  marches  of  Westere  Fedale,  apparently  near  Auch- 
terarder:  Patrick  Ker,  Simon  of  Fedale,  Gillemury  son 
of  sai.d  Simon;  Simon  Derech,  Gillebride,  Gillefalyn, 
son  of  said  Gillebride,  Gillecrist  Mac  Hatheny,  Gille 
crist  Mac  Moreherthach,  Gill  Ethueny,  Gillecostentyn.* 
In  the  year  1219a  perambulation  was  made  between  cer- 
tain lands  of  the  monastery  of  Aberbrothoc  (Arbroath). 
The  perambulators  all  bore  Irish  names,  while  several 
bearing  French  or  Norman  names  were  present,  showing 
that  the  members  of  both  the  Gaelic  and  the  Franco-Nor- 
man aristocracy  met  on  equal  terms.  The  evidence  derived 
from  royal  charters  show  an  equal  predominance  of  Irish 
names  long  after  the  Teuton  was  supposed  to  have  driven 
the  Gael  into  the  highlands.  So  far  from  there  having 
been  any  expulsion  of  the  Celt  from  the  lowlands  at  the 
period  indicated  the  only  expulsions  of  which  we  have 
authentic  record  were  of  foreign  intruders  at  court  and 
elsewhere,  both  English  and  Norman. 

Thus  English  courtiers  were  expelled  from  Scotland  on 
two  occasions  shortly  after  the  death  of  Margaret,  two 
English  chroniclers,  Symeon  of  Durham,  and  the  writer 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  even  going  so  far  as  to 
state  that  all  the  English  were  driven  out  of  Scotland. 
William  of  Newburgh  relates  that  after  the  capture  of 
William  the  Lion  in  1174,  the  Scots  fell  upon  those 
English  burghers  who  were  in  the  Scottish  army,  that 

1  Chartulary  of  Lindores,  p.   26. 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of   Britain 

some  of  these  burghers  were  killed,  and  that  the  rest  fled 
to  the  royal  castles.*  This  points  to  the  numerical  infe- 
riority of  the  English  element.  One  of  the  consequences 
of  the  battle  of  Carham  (1018)  was  the  reintroduction  of 
Irish  speech  and  Irish  rule  into  Lothian.  Indeed  Irish 
even  spread  into  the  county  of  Northumberland.  More- 
over the  lists  of  burgal  names  illustrate  a  movement  of  the 
Gaelic  country  population  into  towns  like  Aberdeen, 
which  admittedly  had  a  large  foreign  element.  This 
movement  is  an  ever  persistent  phenomenon,  as  marked 
to-day  as  it  was  in  those  days. 

The  lowland  personal  names  of  even  the  present  day 
are  predominantly  Irish,  not  English.  The  late  Sheriff 
Ferguson  of  Kinmundy,  in  commenting  on  the  Registrar- 
General's  report  in  1864,  pointed  out  that  one  half  of 
the  fifty  commonest  Scottish  surnames  were  either  recog- 
nized clan  names,  or  else  were  names  the  form  of  which 
indicated  their  Celtic  origin.  The  remaining  half  included 
six  formed  by  the  addition  of  "son"  and  several,  such  as 
Smith,  which  might  possibly  be  translations  from  the  Gaelic. 
Common  lowland  names  are  Bain,  Dow,  Ferguson,  Glass, 
Allison,  Anderson,  Smith,  Gow,  Grierson,  Kennedy,  Kerr, 
Orr,  Scott,  and  Wallace — nearly  all  these  being  the  altered 
forms  of  Irish  originals.  Concerning  the  penultimate 
name,  Robertson  remarks  that  the  "first  ancestor  must 
have  stood  out  among  the  Saxons  of  the  Lothians  as 
Scotus,  the  Gael."  Allison  and  Ellison  were  Mac  Alis- 
tair;  Smith  was  MacGowan;  Ferguson  was  Mac  Fergus; 
Anderson,  MacAndrai;  and  so  on. 

Other  common  lowland  names,  outwardly  English,  such 
as  Black  and  Whyte,  are  in  most  cases  merely  translations 
of  the  corresponding  adjectives  in  Irish  speech — names 
such  as  Domhnull  Dubh  for  example. 

1  Chronicles  of  Stephen,  etc.,  I,  186. 

326 


Appendices 

Even  surnames  that  cannot  be  shown  to  have  any  but 
an  English  origin  are  no  proof  of  English  ancestry.  They 
merely  show  that  the  name  was  established  after  the 
English  language  had  displaced  the  Irish  language  in  that 
part  of  Scotland  in  which  the  name  originated. 

Nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  the  lowlands  of  Scot- 
land, whatever  the  change  in  speech  and  habit  that  later 
came,  remained  in  population  as  permanently  Irish  or  Gae- 
lic or  Scot  or  Celtic — whatever  the  term  preferred — as  the 
highland  portion  of  the  country.  In  truth  as  time  passed  the 
northern  parts  of  England,  such  as  Cumbria  and  Northum- 
bria,  acquired  a  considerable  infusion  of  Gaelic  blood  as 
well,  for  the  path  of  emigration  has  always  been  in  a 
southerly  direction,  and  the  family  names  prevalent  in  the 
northern  parts  of  England  are  largely  Gaelic  to-day.  But 
in  course  of  time  English  speech  spread  slowly  northward 
and  we  are  able  to  point  almost  to  the  very  earliest  cir- 
cumstances that  induced  a  population,  Gaelic  in  the  mass, 
gradually  to  submit  to  processes  that  were  eventually  to 
wean  them  from  allegiance  to  their  ancient  motherland. 
Thus  Grant  Allen  observes,  speaking  of  Archbishop 
Dunstan : 

"One  act  of  Dunstan's  policy,  however,  had  far-reach- 
ing results  of  a  kind  which  he  himself  could  never  have 
anticipated.  He  handed  over  all  Northumbria  beyond 
the  Tweed — the  region  now  known  as  the  Lothians — as 
a  fief  to  Kenneth,  king  of  the  Scots.  This  accession  of 
territory  wholly  changed  the  character  of  the  Scottish 
kingdom  and  largely  promoted  the  Teutonization  of  the 
Celtic  north.  The  Scottish  princes  took  up  their  residence 
in  the  English  (sic)  town  of  Edinburgh  and  learned  to 
speak  the  English  language  as  their  mother  tongue."* 

1  Anglo-Saxon  Britain,  p.  147. 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

The  same  writer  goes  on  to  remind  us  how  Eadmund 
had  already  ceded  Strathclyde,  or  Cumberland,  to  Mal- 
colm so  that  the  Scottish  kings  ruled  over  all  Scotland, 
except  the  Scandinavian  jarldoms  of  Caithness,  Suther- 
land, and  the  Isles,  and  how  Fife  also  was  Anglicized  as 
well  as  the  whole  region  south  of  the  Highland  line. 
'Thus  a  new  and  powerful  kingdom,"  he  continues,  "arose 
in  the  North  and  at  the  same  time  the  cession  of  an  English 
district  to  the  Scottish  kings  had  the  curious  result  of 
thoroughly  Anglicizing  two  large  and  important  Celtic 
regions,  which  had  hitherto  resisted  every  effort  of  the 
Northumbrian  or  West  Saxon  overlords."  Grant  Allen 
is  here  on  the  right  track,  but  he  exaggerates.  The 
Anglicization  of  w^hich  he  speaks  was  a  much  slower 
process  than  he  supposes.  The  Anglicization  described 
took  place  very  much  later  than  the  period  he  assigns  to 
it,  and  it  was  preceded  by  a  Gallicization.  Gaelic  was 
spoken  in  Fife  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  Gaelic  was 
spoken  in  the  Scottish  parliament  in  the  days  of  Bruce, 
and  long  after.  But  he  is  correct  in  so  far  as  he  indicates 
that  the  Anglicization  of  Scotland  has  come  about  not 
through  English  immigration  but  by  the  discarding  on  the 
part  of  the  Gaels  of  Scotland  of  the  ancient  Irish  tongue 
inherited  from  their  ancestors. 

Even  in  the  four  counties  of  Lothian,  often  confounded 
by  non-Scotch  people  with  the  so-called  "Lowlands,"  the 
population  was  mixed.  The  passages  in  Bede,  which 
seem  to  refer  to  Anglian  colonization  immediately  south 
of  the  Forth,  can  only  have  been  based  on  temporary  over- 
lordship.  The  seaboard  from  the  southern  wall  to  the 
Lammermuir  Hills  fell  into  the  uncertain  possession  of 
the  Angles.  But  the  tract,  looking  seaward  from  that 
range  to  where  the  Avon  empties  itself  into  the  Forth  or 

328 


Appendices 

thereabouts,  and  commonly  known  as  the  Lothians,  was 
occupied  by  a  considerable  mixture  of  races,  as  may  be 
gathered  from  the  place-names  there/  The  district  north 
of  the  Lammermoors  forming  the  peninsula  over  against 
what  is  now  the  county  of  Fife  would  thus  seem  to  have 
been  Celtic. 

The  real  boundaries  of  the  English  colony  in  Scotland 
are  indicated  by  Symeon  of  Durham  in  his  description  of 
the  boundaries  of  the  ancient  diocese  of  Lindisfarne,  a 
diocese  of  which  the  province  of  Lothian  formed  the 
northern  part.  Symeon  says  that  the  boundaries  of  the 
northern  part  of  the  diocese  of  Lindisfarne  were  marked 
by  the  (White)  Adder,  the  Leader  and  the  Esk.  He 
also  mentions  that  Melrose,  Jedburgh,  Yetholm,  and  other 
places  east  of  Roxburghshire  pertained  to  the  diocese  of 
Lindisfarne.^  Thus  the  Esk  in  Dumfriesshire  near  the 
English  border  marked  the  real  northern  limit  of  the 
English  province.  Beyond  that  river  the  Angles  had  only 
isolated  settlements,  such  as  Abercorn^ 

Irish  Place-Names. — ^The  assertions  as  to  English 
settlement  and  suzerainty  between  the  Tweed  and  the 
Forth  are  based  largely  on  the  false  etymology  of  the  name 
Edinburgh,  meaning  the  "forehead"  or  "brow"  (aodann) 
of  a  "hill"  (bruch),  Aodann-bruch.  Most  English  his- 
torians, being  ignorant  of  the  Irish  language,  have  been 
unaware  of  this.  One  after  the  other  they  have  echoed  the 
mistaken  notion  that  the  city  derived  its  name  from  Edwin, 
king  of  Northumbria,  and  they  have  proceeded  to  magnify 
his  character  and  exploits  in  grandiose  words  on  account 
of  it.  Thus  Green  says  concerning  Edwin:  "Northward 
his  frontier  reached  the  Forth  and  was  guarded  by  a  city 
which  bore  his  name,  Edinburgh,  Eadwine's  burgh,  the 

1  Rhys,  Early  Britain. 
aHistorla,  I,  197-9;  II,  101. 


Ireland  and  the   Making  of   Britain 

city  of  Eadwine."  Plausibility  is  given  to  the  derivation 
by  the  error  of  a  copyist  or  interpolator  of  Symeon  of 
Durham,  but  Aodann,  or  edin,  occurs  as  a  prefix  in  more 
than  a  hundred  places  in  Ireland  and  Scotland  and  there 
is  no  doubt  of  the  Irish  character  of  the  name.  Similarly 
Auld  Reekie  is  derived  from  the  Irish  alt  (high  place) 
ruighe  (slope) ;  Arthur's  Seat,  from  the  Irish  ard-thir 
suidhe,  a  place  on  high  ground,  and  so  on/ 

Irish  place-names  in  Scotland  outnumber  all  others  by 
ten  to  one,  while  such  of  them  as  are  or  appear  to  be 
English  have  in  cases  like  those  just  mentioned  been  trans- 
lated or  corrupted  from  their  Irish  form.  Thus  Edderon, 
near  Tain,  is  Eadar  duin,  "the  town  between  the  hillocks"; 
Falkirk  is  a  translation  of  Eaglais  breac,  "the  speckled 
church"  (Varia  Capella) ;  Earlston  is  Ercheldon  or 
Ercildun;  Almond  is  a  corruption  of  Amhuinn,  a  river; 
and  Glen  Howl  is  Gleann-a-ghabail,  "the  glen  of  the 
fork."^  In  a  similar  way  Strathclyde  has  become  Clydes- 
dale; Strathnith  has  become  Nithsdale;  Strathannan  has 
become  Annansdale;  and  so  on.  In  some  cases  the  Irish 
prefix  "kil-"  has  been  supplanted  by  the  Saxon  "kirk-,"  as 
Kirkpatrick  for  Kilpatrick.  But  "Kil-"  is  still  the  more 
common  prefix,  as  Kilmarnock,  signifying  the  "chapel 
of  Marnock,"  a  famous  Irish  saint.  In  Galloway  alone, 
almost  the  most  southerly  part  of  Scotland,  Sir  Herbert 
Maxwell  found  220  "Knocks"  (Irish  Cnoc,  "a  Hill").' 
There  are  Irish  place-names  even  in  Berwickshire  on  the 
English  border  and  they  increase  as  we  go  north  and  west 
in  the  rest  of  the  Lothians.  The  subject  of  place-names 
however  needs  no  laboring.    A  glance  at  any  large  scale- 

1  See  Milne,  Gaelic  Place-Names  in  the  Lothians;  Joyce,  Irish  Names  of 
Places. 

2  Johnston,  Place-Names  in  Scotland,  p.  XVII. 

3  Studies  in  the  Topography  of  Galloway,  1885. 


Appendices 

map  of  Ireland  and  Scotland  even  by  a  person  who  knows 
next  to  nothing  of  the  Irish  tongue  is  sufficient  to  make  it 
clear  that  the  vast  majority  of  place-names  in  the  two 
countries  have  a  common  and  an  Irish  origin. 

Highlanders  and  Lowlanders  Both  Gaels. — ^The 
supposed  racial  dififerences  between  "highlanders"  and 
"lowlanders"  moreover  find  no  support  in  the  pages  of 
early  Irish,  Scottish,  and  English  historians.  These  last 
had  not  then  discovered  that  the  two-nation  theory  would 
be  a  valuable  political  asset  to  England  in  its  dealing  with 
its  northern  neighbor.  John  of  Fordun  remarks  that  the 
speakers  of  the  Scottish  language  inhabit  the  hill  country 
and  the  outer  isles  and  that  the  speakers  of  the  Teutonic 
language  dwell  in  the  maritime  regions  and  the  plains.* 
Gaelic  continued  to  exist  in  the  south  of  Scotland  long 
after  Fordun's  time,  even  in  some  of  the  more  low-lying 
districts.  He  says  the  Scottish-speaking  hillmen  are  hos- 
tile to  the  English,  and  even  to  their  own  nation,  on 
account  of  the  difference  of  speech.  Outside  of  Lothian 
he  does  not  mention  the  presence  of  English  settlers. 
Instead  he  reiterates  a  remark  of  Isidore's  to  the  efifect 
that  the  Scottish  people  resemble  the  Irish  in  all  things, 
in  language,  manners  and  character. 

Hector  Boece,  writing  a  century  later,  also  maintains 
a  significant  silence  on  the  subject  of  the  supposed  Saxon 
descent  of  the  lowlanders  and  the  supposed  expulsion  of 
the  Celt.  He  says  instead  that  the  Scots  on  the  English 
border  through  much  commercial  intercourse  and  wars, 
had  learned  the  Saxon  speech,  and  had  forsaken  their  own 
speech.  (Saxonum  linguam  didicimus  nostramque 
deseruimus.)  The  language  was  slightly  pushed  out, 
but  not  the  men.    Like  Fordun,  Boece  adds  that  the  people 

1  Book  II,  Ch.  9. 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

living  on  the  higher  ground  still  speak  their  own  lan- 
guage. John  Major,  writing  about  1520,  says  that  one 
half  of  Scotland  spoke  Gaelic  in  his  time  and  that  many 
more  did  so  a  short  time  previously.^  He  adds  that  "we 
(i.  e.,  the  Scottish  people)  trace  our  descent  from  the 
Irish.  This  we  learn  from  the  English  Bede.  Their 
speech  is  another  proof  of  this,"  and  again,  "I  say  then 
from  whosoever  the  Irish  traced  their  descent  from  the 
same  source  come  the  Scots  tho  at  one  remove,  as  with 
son  and  grandfather." 

In  the  same  century  Bishop  Leslie  wrote  his  De  Gestis 
Scotorum,  which  Father  Dalrymple  translated  into 
English  in  1596.  The  latter  says  that  the  "mair  politick 
Scottis,"  by  which  phrase  he  translates  the  bishop's  poli- 
tiores  Scoti,  use  the  "Ingles  toung,"  and  that  "the  rest 
of  the  Scottis  ....  thay  use  thair  aide  Irishe  tongue." 
About  1630  James  Howell  wrote  that  "the  ancient  lan- 
guage of  Scotland  is  Irish,  which  the  mountaineers  and 
divers  of  the  plain  retain  to  this  day."*  Irish  annalists, 
moreover,  nowhere  mention  any  racial  difference  between 
lowland  Scots  on  the  one  hand  and  highland  Scots  and 
the  Irish  themselves  on  the  other.  To  them  Scotland  is 
simply  a  kindred  province  or  kingdom,  and  the  frequent 
use  of  the  phrase  "Eire  agus  Alba"  shows  their  recogni- 
tion of  the  essential  oneness  of  the  people  of  both  coun- 
tries. Thus  Armagh  in  the  twelfth  century  was  the 
national  university  for  Ireland  and  Scotland.  The  decree 
that  every  lector  in  every  church  had  to  take  there  a  degree 
applied  to  both  countries  and  in  11 69  the  High  King, 
Ruaidhri  Ua  Concobhair,  gave  the  first  annual  grant  to 
maintain  a  professor  at  Armagh  "for  all  the  Irish  and 
the  Scots." 

iHistorie  of  Scotland,  I,  85,  86. 

2  Familiar  Letters,  Book  II,  Letter  55. 

332 


Appendices 

Even  the  phrases  "highland"  and  "lowland"  are 
unknown  to  the  early  writers.  Gaelic  knows  nothing  of 
these  fictitious  distinctions.  Andrew  of  Wyntoun  is  the 
first  writer  to  make  mention  of  the  former  word.  In  his 
Orygynale  Cronykil,  written  about  1420-4,  he  uses  the 
phrase  "Scottis  hielande  men."  The  word  "lowland"  does 
not  make  its  appearance  till  another  century  had  nearly 
passed  away,  when  Dunbar  employed  it  in  his  Flyting 
with  Kennedie.  Thus  these  terms,  of  which  so  much 
political  use  has  since  been  made,  are  purely  modern  terms 
and  the  invention  of  English  speakers.  Philemon  Hol- 
land, an  Englishman,  goes  in  1610  a  step  further,  when 
he  says  that  "the  Scots  are  divided  into  Hechtlandmen 
and  Lawlandmen."'  Tobias  Smollett  in  1771  was  appar- 
ently the  first  writer  to  refer  to  lowland  Scots  as  "Saxons" 
(Humphry  Clinker),  but  Sir  Walter  Scott  has  also  to  be 
credited  with  the  diffusion  of  the  racial  difference  theory. 

The  Scottish  lexicographer'^  sums  up  some  points  cor- 
rectly when  he  says:  "The  difference  between  the  Irish 
and  the  Scots  is  geographical  only  and  not  racial,  as  the 
records  of  both  amply  and  abundantly  prove.  Both  call 
themselves  Gaidhail  (Gael)  in  their  own  language,  and 
fraternize  instantly  as  soon  as  English,  the  language  of 
disunion,  is  removed.  Any  difference  between  them  is 
more  imaginary  than  real  and  has  been  invented  and 
assiduously  accentuated  for  political  reasons  only,  on  the 
old  and  barbarous  plan  of  Mivide  and  rule.'  "^ 

1  Camden,  Britannia,  I,  155. 

2Dwelly,  Faclair  Gaidhlig  (Gaelic  Dictionary),  Heme  Bay,  E.  MacDonald 
&  Co..  1902,  Vol.  I,  Roimh-Radh  (Preface),  IV. 

3  For  much  of  the  testimony  and  evidence  contained  in  the  above  Appendix 
I  am  indebted  to  two  articles  by  H.  C.  MacNeacail  in  the  Scottish  Review 
(Autumn,  Winter,  1918),  written  for  the  purpose  of  showing  that  the 
inhabitants  of  Scotland  were  Celts  and  not  English  or  Teuton.  I  had  already 
arrived  at  the  conclusions  given  above  and  had  set  forth  the  evidence  before 
meeting  with  Mr.  MacNeacail's  articles.  I  found  much  that  was  new  among 
his  well-arranged  testimony  and  have  made  use  of  it  here,  though  my  line 
of  argument  is  somewhat  different  from  his. 

333 


APPENDIX  C 


THE  HIGH  MONARCHS  OF  IRELAND 

THE  following  is  a  list  of  the  Ard  Righs  or  High 
Kings  of  Ireland  from  the  beginning  of  the  Chris- 
tian era.  The  remarkable  fact  is  to  be  noted  that 
the  descendants  of  Ring  Niall  I  (379-405)  occupied  the 
throne  of  Ireland  in  unbroken  succession  till  the  usurpa- 
tion of  King  Brian  (icx)2-i4),  a  period  of  nearly  six 
hundred  years.  This  list  is  distinct  from  the  dynasties 
in  the  subsidiary  kingdoms,  some  of  which  endured  to  the 
seventeenth  century: 


A.  D. 

Q)nari  I I 

Lugaid  I 65 

Conchubair  I 73 

Crimthann  I    74 

Cairbre  I   90 

Feradach  I    95 

Fiatach  1 17 

Fiacha  I 119 

Elim    126 

Tuathal  I  130 

Mai   160 

Fedlimidh 164 

Cathair   174 

Conn  Cedcathach  (of  the 

Hundred  Battles)  177 

Conari  II  212 

Art    220 

Lugaid  II 250 

Fergus  I 253 

Cormac 254 

Eochaid  I 277 

Cairbre  II   279 

Fiacha  II  297 

Colla   327 

Muiredach    331 


A.  D. 

Caelbad 357 

Eochaid  II 358 

Crimthann  II 366 

Niall  I  (of  the  Nine 

Hostages) 379 

Dathi  (Feradach  II)   405 

Laighaire   428 

Olioll 463 

Lugaid  III 483 

Muirchetach  I 512 

Tuathal  II  533 

Diarmuid  I 544 

Domhnaill  I  joint  )  -g- 

Fergus  II      kings  ( ^ 

Baitan  I         joint  ) c^ 

Eochaid  III  kings  ) 

Ainmire 568 

Baitan  II 571 

Aedh  I  572 

Aedh  (Slaine)  II  joint  ?         -qO 
Colman  kings  )     *  * 

Aedh  III   603 

Maelcoba    611 

Suibne    614 

Domhnaill  II 627 


334 


Appendices 


A.  D. 

Ceallach  joint  |  g .  j 

Conaill  kings  j  

Blathmac        joint  / 5^6 

Diarmuid  II  kings  J 

Sechnasach 664 

Cennfaelad 671 

Finachta 674 

Longsech    694 

Congal 704 

Fergal 711 

Fogartach 722 

Cioneth 724 

Flathbertach 727 

Aedh  IV   734 

Domhnaill  III  743 

Niallll 763 

Donnchad  I 770 

Aedh  V 797 

Conchubair  II 819 

Niall  III 853 

Mailsechlann  I 846 

Aedh  VI 863 


A.  D. 

Flann 879 

Niall  IV 916 

Donnchad  II 919 

Congalach 944 

Domhnaill  IV  956 

Mailsechlann  II 980 

Brian  (Boroimhe) 1002 

Mailsechlann  II  (again)   ..1014 

Donnchad  III 1027 

Diarmuid  III 1064 

Turlogh  I 1072 

Muirchetach  II  1086 

Domhnaill  V 1086 

Turlogh  II 1 136 

Muirchetach  III 1156 

Ruadhri 1 161-1 198 

A  succession  of  Irish  provin- 
cial kings  and  princes,  particu- 
larly among  the  O'Neills,  laid 
claim  to  the  throne  of  Ireland  up 
to  the  seventeenth  century. 


335 


APPENDIX  D 
IRISH   KINGS   OF   SCOTLAND 

THERE  is  a  list  of  thirty-three  Irish  kings  of  the 
continually  expanding  kingdom  of  Dalriada  in 
the  west  of  Scotland  beginning  with  the  founda- 
tion of  the  Irish  monarchy  in  Scotland  by  Fergus  (c.  490- 
503)  down  to  Alpin,  the  first  Irish  king  of  Scotland  to  be 
crowned  at  Scone.  Beginning  with  Cainnech,  or  Ken- 
neth, the  son  of  Alpin,  the  Irish  kings  of  united  Scotland 
are  as  follows: 


A.  D. 

Cainnech 844 

Domhnaill    860 

Constantin    863 

Aedh  877 

Eochaid    878 

Domhnaill  II  889 

Constantin  II 900 

Maelcolm  I 943 

Indulph    Q54 

Duff  (Dubh) 962 

Cuilean  967 

Cainnech  II 971 

Constantin  III 995 

Cainnech  III  997 


A.  D. 

Maelcolm  II   1005 

Duncan  I  1034 

Macbeth   1040 

Maelcolm  III   1057 

Domhnaill  III 1093 

(Duncan  II  1094) 

Edgar   1097 

Alexander  I 1 106 

David  I    1 124 

Maelcolm  IV 1153 

William  I 1165 

Alexander  II 1214 

Alexander  III  1249-1286 


336 


APPENDIX  E 
SOME  WORKS  OP  REFERENCE 

Migne:  Patrologiae  Citrsus  Computus;  Series  Latina;  217  Vols, 
including  a  large  part  of  the  poetic,  epistolary,  historical,  phil- 
osophical and  patristic  Latin  literature  of  the  1,000  years  from 
Tertullian  (d.  240)  to  Innocent  III  (d.  1216),  Paris,  1844-55.; 
with  4  Vols,  of  Indices,  1862-4. 

Monumenta  Germaniae  Historica,  folio  series  of  Scriptores,  etc., 
edited  by  Pertz  and  others  (Hanover)  1826-91;  continued  in 
quarto  series,  Berlin,  1877-  (in  progress). 

"Rolls  Series^' ;  Rerum  Brittanicarum  medii  Aevi  Scriptores,  or 
Chronicles  and  Memorials  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  during 
the  Middle  Ages,  published  under  the  direction  of  the  Master 
of  the  Rolls,  244  Vols.,  London,  1858-96. 


Academy,  Royal  Irish,  Proceedings  and  Trans. 
Acta  Sanctorum  of  the  Bollandists  ("Acta  SS"). 
Adamnan,  Life  of  St.  Columba  (edited  Reeves). 
Anecdota  Oxoniensia,  from  MSS.  in  the  Bodleian  and  other  Ox- 
ford Libraries. 
Anglia  Sacra,  2  Vols. 

Annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  edited  O'Donovan. 
Bede,  Historia  Ecclesiastica,  and  other  works. 
Brehon  Laws.     Ancient  Laws  and  Institutes  of  Ireland,  Dublin, 

1865-91,  6  Vols. 
Bury,  J.  B.,  Life  of  St.  Patrick. 
Colgan:  Acta  Sanctorum. 
Gildas:   De  Excidio  Brit. 
Giraldus  Cambrensis:   Opera  (Rolls  Series). 
Gougaud,  Dom  L. :  Les  Chretientes  Celtiques. 
Haddan  and  Stubbs,  Councils  and  Ecclesiastical  Documents. 
Healy,  J. :   Insula  Sanctorum  et  Doctorum. 
Hyde,  D. :    Literary  History  of  Ireland. 
Jonas,  Vita  S.  Columbani. 

Jones,  Vestiges  of  the  Gael  in  Gwynedd  (N.  Wales). 
Joyce,  P.  W. :   Social  History  of  Ireland  (2  Vols.). 
Leabhar  na  g-Ceart,  or  Book  of  Rights. 
Lanigan:    Ecclesiastical  History  of  Ireland. 
Lynch,  Cambrensis  Eversus. 

Montalembert,  Les  Moines  d'Occident,  Paris,  1863. 
Nennius,  Historia  Britonum. 
23  337 


Ireland  and  the  Making  of  Britain 

O'Hanlon:    Lives  of  the  Irish  Saints,  DubHn,  1875  et  seq. 

Skene:   Celtic  Scotland. 

Schultze,  W. :     Die  Bedeutung  der  Iroschottischen  Monche,  etc., 

(Centralblatt  fiir  Bibliothekswesen,  1889). 
Stokes  and  Strachan:   Thesaurus  Palseohibernicus  (2  Vols.). 
Tain  bo  Chuailnge  ("The  Tain"),  trs.  Hutton. 
Traube,  L. :  O  Roma  Nobilis  (Abhandlungen  d.  K.  Bayer.    Akad. 

1891);  Perrona  Scottorum  (Abhandlungen,  1900). 
Ulster  Journal  of  Archaeology,  Old  Series,  9  Vols.  (Articles  by  Wm. 

Reeves,  F.  Keller,  and  Wattenbach). 
Zimmer,  The  Irish  Element  in  Mediaeval  Culture  (translation  of 

article  in  Preuss.    Jahrbiicher,  1887). 


338 


INDEX 


Abban,  work  of,  253-255. 

Abba's  Hill,  254. 

Aberbrothoc  (Arbroath),  monastery 
of,  325. 

Aberdeen,  316,  326. 

Abingdon,  monastery  of,  253-255. 

Acca's  Cross,  282. 

Acha,  215. 

Acts  Pari.  Scot,  324. 

Adamnan,  life  of  Columcille,  21,  95, 
106,  and  note,  117,  119,  120-122, 
126-156;  "De  Locis  Sanctis,"  54; 
"Historia  Hibernorum,"  78;  career 
of  Adamnan,  149-155  ;  "Lex  Adam- 
nani,"  152;  "Vision  of  Adamnan," 
154;  Adamnan  and  the  English, 
200-202  and  215 ;  relations  with 
King  Aldfrid,  214;  Adamnan  and 
Bede,  272. 

Adda,  225-226. 

Adrian  at  Canterbury,  264-268,  285- 
287. 

Adrian  IV,  Pope,  191. 

Aebba,  221. 

Aedh,  106,  138. 

-Sldilhilda,  255. 

^dwine,  222. 

Albert,  273. 

.i^ingus  the  Culdee,  on  foreigners  in 
Ireland,  53;  his  Felire,  112. 

iEthelhun,  255. 

^thelwald,  257. 

-lEthelwine,  work  of,  255-256. 

^thelwulf,  274. 

Agilbert  the  Frank,  educated  in 
Ireland,  56,  229,  241,  243. 

Agricola,  camp  of,  103. 

Aidan,  King,  20-21,  66,  135,  139;  de- 
feats the  English,  202. 

Aidan,  Bishop,  real  apostle  of  En- 
gland, 195 ;  among  the  English 
tribes,  201-202;  influence  against 
slavery,     210-21 1;     school     of     12 

339 


boys,  211;  relations  with  Oswald, 
211-213;  as  statesman,  213;  King 
Oswin's  veneration  for,  216-219; 
death  of,  217-218;  Bede's  eulogy 
of,  218-219;  foundations  in  En- 
gland, 219-224;  date  of  death,  224; 
English  churches  dedicated  to,  224; 
eflfects  of  his  work,  231,  233,  243, 
245,  248,  271,  273,  286. 

Aileach,  158;  king  of,  308. 

Ailech  of  the  Kings,  281. 

Airt,  91. 

Aix-la-Chapelle,  Irish  in,  11. 

Alba,  explained,  46,  176. 

Albeus,  53. 

Albinus,  21. 

Albiones,  176. 

Alcuin,  3,  24,  55,  56,  75-76,  79,  96, 
123,  154,  221,  265,  272,  273,  279, 
285,  290. 

Aldfrid,  king  of  Northumbria,  58, 
135,  151-152,  154,  214,  215,  228- 
229,  239,  272. 

Aldhelm,  44,  56,  58,  61,  80,  184,  197, 
250,  251,  252,  254;  on  English  stu- 
dents in  Ireland,  256-258;  and 
Cellan,  correspondence  between, 
258-261;  teachers  of,  260,  265-266; 
letter  of  to  Eahfrid,  267-268. 

Alduini,  255, 

Aldwulf,  223. 

Alemanni,  impressed  by  Irish  mis- 
sionaries, 95-96,  165. 

Alexander  III,  115,  318;  court  of, 
322. 

Alfred,  King,  95;  Irish  scholars  and, 
274-276,  291-292. 

Alfred  Jewell,  281. 

Algeis,  247. 

Alithir,  Abbot,  139. 

Allen,  Anglo-Saxon  Britain,  cited, 
277,  327-328. 


Index 


AlHaco,  Cardinal,  191. 

Alphabet,  Roman  practice  of  teach- 
ing, 124. 

Altus,  148. 

Amalgaidh,  182, 

Amand,  16. 

Ambrose,  known  to  Irish,  39,  48. 

Ammianus  Marcellinus,  quoted,  164- 
i6s. 

Ampney  Crusis,  281. 

Amra  Choluim  Chilli,  by  Dalian  For- 
gaill,  122. 

Ancient  Laws  and  Institutes  of 
Ireland,  313. 

Ancona,  Pellegrinus  in,  18. 

Andelys,  223. 

Andrew  of  Fiesole,  19. 

Anecdota  Oxoniensia,  Stokes,  53, 
124,  126,  136,  139,  140,  141,  158. 

Anglesea,  178. 

Anglesey,  170. 

Anglia  Sacra,  Vita.  S.  Dustani,  by 
Osbern,  quoted,  289. 

Anglia  Sacra,  303,  305,  306,  309. 

Anglo-Jute-Saxon  conquest  of  Brit- 
ain, 157-159- 

Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  95,  I59.  202, 
178,  214,  275,  294,  311,  325. 

Anglo-Saxon  civilization,  mediocre 
imitation  of  Irish,  285-287. 

Anglo-Saxon  Cottoniana,  map  of  the 
world,  278. 

Anglo-Saxon  students  in  Ireland,  55- 

57. 
Angus    (Augustin),  treatise  by  659, 

18. 
Angus,  son  of  Ere,  114. 
Anna,  King,  246. 
Annales  Cambriae,  178. 
Annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  43,  59, 

154,  163. 
Annals  of  Tighernach,  163,  272. 
Annals  of  Ulster,  78,  272. 
Annegray,  241. 
"Anonymous  History  of  the  Abbots," 

271. 
Anselm,  309. 
Apuleius  known  to  Irish,  39. 


Arbogast,  57. 

Archpresbyter  of  the  Gael,   116-118. 

ArchcEological  and  Historical  Collec- 
tions of  Ayr  and  Wigton,  316. 

Archaeological  Journal,  81. 

Architecture,  schools  of,  in  Ireland, 
44. 

Arculf,  54,  154. 

Ardagh  Chalice,  12,  74. 

Ardrigh  or  High  King,  115,  334. 

Argj^leshire,  114. 

Aristotle,  first  translated  by  an 
Irishman  from  the  Arabic  into 
Latin,  25. 

Aristotle,  Irish  familiar  with,  38-39. 

Aries,  199. 

Armagh,  founded  before  Bagdad,  3 ; 
importance  of,  32-33 ;  number  of 
students  in,  49;  "metropolis  of 
civilization,"  52;  schools  and  schol- 
ars, 55,  60,  112;  university  for 
Ireland  and  Scotland,  2Z^;  Synod 
at,  decrees  emancipation  of  English 
slaves,  310. 

Armorica,  159. 

Art,  father  of  King  Cormac,  163. 

Art  i\Iac  Murrough,  King  of  Lein- 
ster,  298. 

Artchorp,  174. 

Artuil,  letter  of,  to  Aldhelm,  261. 

Asser,  276,  291. 

Asterius,  Bishop,  242. 

Astronomy,  taught  by  Irish,  21. 

At  the  Wall,  226. 

Athanasius,  known  to  Irish,  39. 

Attacotti,  165, 

Aughrim,  299. 

Augusta,  166. 

Augustine  (.^Engus),  work  on  mira- 
cles, 106,  190. 

Augustine,  known  to  Irish,  39,  48; 
of  Canterbury,  196,  199,  200,  204, 
204-205,  220,  232,  263-264. 

Ausonius,  30. 

Austria,  Irish  in,  12. 

Avienus,  176. 

Ayrshire,  316. 

Azores,  known  to  Irish,   11,   189. 


Inde 


X 


B 


Bag  Enderly,  281. 

Bain's  Calendar  of  Documents,  324. 

Baithan,  146. 

Baithene,  135,  140;  on  Columcille, 
122. 

Baldred,   184. 

Baja,  183. 

Bamberg  ms.,  187. 

Bamborough,  218,  224,  288. 

Banfleda,  Queen,   228. 

Bangor,  3 ;  founded  by  Comgall, 
33 ;  fame  of,  35 ;  number  of 
students  in,  49 ;  rival  of  Tailtenn, 
112. 

Bangor-Iscoed,  182. 

Baoithin,  21. 

Barbour,  318,  322. 

Bardic  Order  in  Ireland,  66. 

Bards,  Columcille's  defense  of,  139. 

Bardney,  223. 

Barking,  221. 

Barkney,  223. 

Basil  and  Armenian  students  in 
Athens  compared  with  Theodore 
and  Irish  students  at  Canterbury, 
266  note. 

Bath,  277. 

Battle  of  Magh  Ruth,  Pub.  I.  A.  S., 
175- 

Bavaria,  196. 

Beag  Erin,  185. 

Becchetti,  190. 

Bede,  55,  S6-58,  64-65,  68,  78,  113- 
114,  123,  126,  129,  137,  152,  153, 
154,  158,  164,  176,  182,  193,  194, 
197-198,  199,  200,  221,  205,  207,  213, 
216-219,  224,  226,  222-229,  230-252, 
254-256,  262,  265,  267,  270;  influ- 
ence by  Irish  scholars,  271 ;  history 
modeled  on  Irish  works,  272. 

Bedell's  Irish  version  of  Scriptures, 
320. 

Bedwyn,  254. 

Begery,  185. 

Begha  (Bee),  185-186,  222. 

Beith,  242. 

Belgium,  Irish  in,  12,  16. 


Benedict  XII,  191. 

Benedictine  rule,  intro.  of,  into  En- 
gland, 264;  monasteries,  restoration 
of,  276. 

Benedictines,  note  on,  47. 

Benet  Biscop,  264,  269,  271,  287. 

Benwell,  224, 

Beokery,  277. 

Beorwald,  307. 

Berger,  Histoire  de  la  Vulgate,  189. 

Berin's  Hill,  242. 

Bernicia,  213. 

Bertha,   196,  204. 

Bertuin,  16. 

Betti,  225,  226. 

Bewcastle  Cross,  281,  282. 

Biere  (Saxony)  Ogham,  characters 
in,  172. 

Birinus,  Bishop,  241-243,  244. 

Blackhill,  224. 

Blaithmac,  234. 

Blind  Harry,  318. 

Bobbio,  founded  by  Columbanus,  15, 
21 ;  library  of,  74. 

Bodleian  Library  at  Oxford,  ms. 
life  of  Columcille,  123. 

Bodleian  Library,  ms.  at,  142. 

Boece,  Hector,  211,  315,  331-332. 

Boek  Ereie,  184. 

Boethius,  39,  72,  291. 

Boisel,  211,  221,  271. 

Bollandists,  179. 

Boniface,  10,  180,  197,  223,  251,  252, 
266,  287,  307. 

Book  of  Armagh,  74. 

Book  of  Ballymote,  65,  91. 

Book  of  Deir,  45,  74,  300. 

Book  of  Dun  Cow,  74,  105,  note,  154. 

Book  of  Durrow,  148, 

Book  of  Kells,  12,  148. 

Book  of  Lecain,  154,  168,  309. 

Book  of  Leinster,  64,  74,  123,  275. 

Book  of  Lindisfarne,  274. 

Book  of  Lismore,  123 ;  its  life  of  Col- 
umcille, 125,  126,  136,  137. 

Book  of  Rights,  tr.  O'Donovan,  177, 
307. 


341 


Inde; 


Books  in  Ireland,  38-40. 

Bosa,  222. 

Bosham,  monastery  of,  255. 

Boston,  224. 

Boswell,  on  An  Irish  Precursor  of 

Dante,  49. 
Bothach,  302. 
Brabant,  16. 
Bradford-on-Avon,    battle    of,    250; 

church  at,  269,  281. 
BrandofiF,    180. 
Brecknock,    Ogham,    inscriptions   in, 

171. 
Brehon  codes,  35. 
Brehon  Laws,  38,  41,  64. 
Brenan,     Eccl.     Hist,     of     Ireland, 

quoted,  22. 
Brendan  of  Birr,  129,  134,  141. 
Brendan  of  Clonfert,  the  navigator, 

53,  106,  129,  141,  187,  189. 
Brendan,  city  of,  34. 
Brendan's  Legend,  106. 
Breviary  of  Aberdeen,  229. 
Brewer,   J.    S.,    Works   of  Giraldus 

Cambrensis,  86,  203. 
Brian,  King,  victory  over  Danes,  292. 
Brie,  223. 
Brigid,  pilgrimages  to  shrine  of,  19; 

221. 
Bristol,  251,  306. 
Britain  and   Ireland,  moving  world 

of,  131-134. 


Britain,  Anglo-Jute-Saxon,  conquest 
of,  157-159;  Gael  and  Sassenach  in, 
157-160;  Irish  clans  in,  160-163; 
Irish  invasions  of,  163-170;  Irish 
kings  in,  166-170;  power  of  Gael 
in,  175-178;  and  Ireland,  commerce 
and  intercourse  between,  177 ;  Irish 
intellectual  intercourse  with,  186- 
189;  disappearance  of  Roman  civ- 
ilization from,  198;  Irish  channels 
of  entry  into,  243-245. 

Briton,  lack  of  fighting  spirit  in, 
159. 

Brittany,  59,  159,  189. 

Brown,  Aldhelm,  266. 

Bruce,  316. 

Brude,  king  of  the  Picts,  143. 

Brugh-righ,  king  of,  308. 

Brunhilda,  Queen,  196. 

Buchan,  155, 

Bugga,  254. 

Buite  in  Pictland,  135,  155. 

Burghcastle,  245. 

Burgundian  Library  at  Brussels,  ins. 
at,  142. 

Buriana,  188. 

Burns,  Book  of  Days,  295,  note;  Jus- 
tice, 295 ;  Notes  and  Queries,  295. 

Burt,  Edward,  quoted,  317-318. 

Burton,  Hist,  of  Scotland,  9,  51,  234. 

Bury's  Later  Roman  Empire,  28. 

Bute,  114. 


C 


Cadoc,  56. 

Cadvan,  173. 

Cadwalla,  215. 

Caedmon,  265. 

Caelin,  248. 

Caerleon,  167. 

Caesar    (Julian   the   Apostate),    165. 

Cailtan,  magician,  120. 

Cainnech,  106,  125,  134,  141. 

Caithness,  115. 

Cairbre  Muse,  175-176. 

Calcacestir,  222. 

Caledonia,   conquest   of,    159. 

Calendar  of  Cashel,  183. 


Calendar  of  Scottish  Papers,  cited, 

316. 
Cambrai,  Irish  in,  1 1, 
Cambrensis  Eversus,  41. 
Cambria,  197. 
Camden,   Britannia,  55-56,   183,   18S, 

253,  297,  Z2,3. 
"Camel,"  Earl  of  Argyle,  317. 
Campion,  Account  of  Ireland,  45. 
Cana,  65. 
Candidus,  71,  303. 
Canmore,    Malcolm,   315;    court   of, 

317;  marriage  with  Margaret,  320. 
Canterbury,  3,   20,   204,   258;    Irish- 


342 


Index 


men    in,    260-261 ;    Theodore   and 

"Molossian   Hounds"   at,   264-268; 

Irish     active     in,     266-267,     278; 

reason  for  Irish  students  at,  267. 
Canute,  sister  of,  304. 
Caractacus,  174. 

Cardigan,  Ogham  inscription  in,  171. 
Cardinal  of  Cambrai,  190. 
Carham,  Irish  defeat  of  English  at, 

8s;  battle  of,  326. 
Caribert,  196. 
Carlisle,  224. 
Carmarthen,  Ogham  inscriptions  in, 

171. 
Carnarvon,  171. 
Caroline  characters,  173. 
Carolingian  Revival,  ir,  24-26. 
Carolingian   era,    Irish    scholars    in, 

79-80. 
Carolingian  schools,  Irish  genealogy 

of,  79-82. 
Carrick,  316,  318. 
Carswell,  Bishop,  version  of  Knox's 

Prayer-book,  320. 
Carthage,  Irish  in,  10,  190. 
Cashel,  .king  .of,  308. 
Cassiodorus,  known  to  Irish,  39,  72. 
Cathach,  148. 

Cathal,  sonof  kingof  Connaught,  59. 
Cathaldus  of  Lismore,  18,  54. 
Catholic    World,    "Irish    Names    in 

Caesar,"  90. 
Caunchobrach,  188. 
Ceadda,  248,  249. 
Ceallach    (Callus)    founds   St.  Gall, 

16,  248. 
Cedd,  211,  225,  226,  277,  229. 
Celin,  227. 
Cellan  and  Aldhelm,  correspondence 

between,  258-261. 
Celtic   invasions  of   Ireland,   29. 
Celtic,  mother  of  Irish  language,  89- 

90. 
"Celtic"   usages   and   the   Synod   of 

Whitby,  230-232. 
Celts  in  Greece,  89;  in  Rome,  89. 
Centwine,  254. 
Cenwealh,  185. 
Ceolfrid,  264,  271. 


Ceollach,  226. 

Ceolwulf,  178,  272,  284. 

Ciaran,  founder  of  Clonmacnois,  53, 

105;    aid    of    Diarmuid    to,    108; 

friend    of     Columcille,     124,     125, 

141;    Columcille's    poem   to,    137; 

called  the  Great,  140. 
Ciaran  of  Kintyre,  155. 
Cicero,  some  speeches  of,  preserved 

by  Irish,  39. 
Cilia,  254. 
Cinead   (Kenneth)   mac  Alpin,   114- 

nS- 

Cineal  Mdha,  king  of,  308. 

Cirencester,  281. 

Cissa,  254,  255. 

Civilization,  stream  of,  divided,  2; 
restoration  of,  6-8;  Christianity 
synonjrmous  with,  96;  and  Chris- 
tianity, parallel  promulgation  of, 
99-101. 

Chad,  211,  225,  227,  248,  249,  271. 

Chalcidius,  known  to  Irish,  39. 

Chalmers,  Caledonia,  202,  314. 

Charisius,  known  to  Irish,  39. 

Charlemagne,  empire  of,  Irish  schol- 
ars in,  24,  79,  80,  121. 

Charles  II,  Gaelic  at  court  of,  317. 

CJiarters  of  Inchaffray  Abbey,  318. 

Chartulary  of  Lindores,  325. 

Chaucer,  191;  of  French  blood,  290, 
296. 

Chelles,  223. 

Chester,  167,  251,  277. 

Chichester,  see  of,  255. 

Choeroboscus,  68. 

Christians  in  Ireland  before  St.  Pat- 
rick, 31. 

Christianity,  came  to  Ireland,  7-8; 
universities  in  Ireland  after  intro- 
duction of,  32;  effect  of,  on  Irish 
military,  85;  synonymous  with 
civilization,  96;  and  civilization, 
parallel  promulgation  of,  99-101 ; 
in  England,  delay  of,   195-213. 

Chronicle  of  Abingdon,  254,  255. 

Chronicle  of  Ademar,  88. 

Chronicle  of  Picts  and  Scots,  ed. 
Skene,  183. 


343 


Index 


Chronicles  of  Stephen,  cited,  326. 

Chrysostom,  in  every  Irish  monas- 
tery,  i8;  known  to  Irish,  39,  181. 

Clan-na-boy,  162. 

Claudian,  quoted,  166,  167. 

Qaudianus  Mamertus,  known  to 
Irish,  39, 

Clemens,  21. 

Clement  of  Alexandria,  known  to 
Irish,  39, 

Clement  of  Ireland,  24,  279, 

Cli,  65. 

Clogher,  Aidan  bishop  of,  220. 

Clonard,  founded  by  Finnian,  3; 
number  of  students  in,  49 ;  a  school 
for  princes,  58-59;  out-glories 
Emain-Macha,  112;  Columcille  at, 
124;  cell  of  Columcille  at,  134. 

Clonenagh,  3. 

Clonfert,  founded  by  St.  Brendan, 
3.  33,  34;  number  of  students  in, 
49,  53. 

Oonmacnois,  founded  by  Ciaran,  3, 
32,  33,  34-35,  44,  I37,  I39;  connec- 
tion with  various  centers,  272,  273. 

Clontarf,  Irish  victory  at,  85,  93. 

Clotilde,  196. 

Clovis,  196,  247. 

Cnobheresburg,  245. 

Cobham,  247. 

Coelfrid,  154. 

Coinwalch,  254. 

Coldingham,  221,  223. 

Coleman,  305. 

Colgan,  Acta  S.  Hib.,  60,  179,  253; 
list  of  Columcille's  writings,  142. 

Colgu  of  Clonmacnois,  188,  272,  273; 
letter  to,  279. 

Collingham,  271. 

Collins,  quoted,  21. 

Colman,  patron  of  Lower  Austria, 
17. 

Colman,  Irish  bishop  in  England,  20, 
58,  153,  note,  228;  departure  from 
England,  230;  work  in  England, 
231,  233,  234;  frugality  of,  235; 
founds  "Mayo  of  the  Saxons," 
236-238;  his  work  in  England,  248, 
262,  284. 


Cologne,  Irish  in,  il, 

Columba,  see  Columcille. 

Columbanus,  5;  monasteries  founded 
by,  in  France,  10;  expulsion  from 
Luxeuil,  15;  modesty  of,  22-23; 
writings  of,  31;  correspondence 
with  Gregory  the  Great,  70-71,  230; 
contemporary  with  Cassiodorus,  72 ; 
contemporary  with  Columcille,  105, 
117-118;  Alcuin  on,  154;  sojourn  in 
England,  199 ;  Lawrence  of  Canter- 
bury and,  205;  his  authority  with 
Kings,  233;  his  foundations  in 
Burgundy,  241 ;  with  correspond- 
ence of  French  bishops,  266;  his 
journey  through  Britain,  279. 

Columbian  foundations,  35. 

Columbian  brotherhood,  155. 

Columcille,  high  birth,  13;  inaugura- 
tion of  King  Aidan,  20;  writings 
of,  31,  137;  at  Parliament  of  Drum- 
ceat,  66,  138-139;  motive  of  his 
exile,  95;  contemporary  with  Col- 
umbanus, 105 ;  conflict  of  Diarmuid 
with,  108;  lineage  of  (table),  116- 
117;  archpresbyter  of  the  Gael, 
116-118;  Christian  Cuchulain, 
119-121;  facts  of  life,  122-126; 
description  of  person,  127;  re- 
sponsibility for  battle  of  Cul- 
dreimhne,  127-129;  threatened  ex- 
communication of,  129;  exile  of, 
to  lona,  129-130;  missionary  labors 
of,  in  Scotland,  130;  lowly  work 
of,  138;  acclaimed  by  multitudes, 
139-140;  defense  of  bards,  139; 
friendships  of,  140-144;  illuminated 
ms.  and  Latin  poems  of,  148-149; 
life,  work  and  successors,  1 16-156; 
time  of  death  of,  145 ;  Saxons  at 
lona  in  his  time,  201 ;  prays  for 
Aidan  fighting  the  barbarians,  202; 
posthumous  influence  in  Easter 
question,  228;  attitude  towards 
kings,  233. 

Comgall,  writings  preserved  by  Col- 
umbanus, note  on,  33;  founds 
Bangor,  106;  anecdote  concerning, 
125;    visits   lona,    134;    friend   of 


344 


Index 


Columcille,  141 ;  connection  with 
Bangor  in  Wales,  182. 

Comyn,  D.,  Intro,  to  Gaelic  History, 
quoted,  182. 

Conaill  Crimthann,  107, 

Conaill  Gulban,  107. 

Conaire,  175,  176. 

Conal   Culban,  descendants   of,   234. 

Conall,  King,  130. 

Conan,  255. 

Conn  of  the  Hundred  Battles,  163. 

Connaught,  kingdom  of,  107,  115,  161, 
162. 

Constans,  165. 

Constantine,  169. 

Constantinople,   Irish   in,   11,    18. 

Corbican,  247. 

Corbie,  211,  247,  276. 

Corhampton,  church  of,  281. 

Cork,  Ogham  inscriptions  in,   171. 

Cormac  (of  Cashel),  quotes  Irish 
authors,  30;  Glossary  of,  41,  173- 
174,  175-176,  183. 

Cormac  (King),  university  estab- 
lished by,  31-32;  description  of,  at 
Tara,  91-92;  "sovereign  of  Alba," 
163. 

Cormac,  friend  of  Columcille,  126, 
134,  141 ;  indefatigable  navigator, 
142;  approaches  Arctic  Circle,  143; 
visits  Iceland,  143;  among  islands 
of  the  North,  189. 

Corman,  211. 

Cornwalch,  243. 

Cornwall,  159,  170;  Ogham  inscrip- 
tions in,  171,  189. 

Correspondence  between  Aldhelm  and 
Cellan,  258-261. 

Council  of  Bavaria  establishes 
schools,  80, 


Council  of  Constance,  190-192. 

Craig,  Sir  Thomas,  315. 

Craike,  221. 

Cremona,  81. 

Cricklade   (Greeklade),  286. 

Crimhthann,  176. 

Crimthann  Mor  (Criffan  the  Great), 

163-164, 
Crith  Gablach,  Sequel  of,  41. 
Crowe,  CBeirne,  122. 
Croyland  Abbey,  198. 
Cruachain,    158. 
Cryptography,  187. 
Cuchulain,    96-97;     compared     with 

Columcille,  119-121;  valor  of,  120. 
Cuican,  274. 

Cuimine,  on  Columcille,  122. 
Culdreimhne,  battle  of,  108,  127-129. 
Culinan,  174,  175. 
Culture  of  Ireland  living  reality,  73- 

76. 
Cumberland,  185,  186,  251. 
Cummian,    paschal    epistle    of,    106, 

118;  its  remarkable  erudition,  231, 

note ;  gave  general  Irish  view,  262, 
Cunceceastre,  221. 
Cuthbert  of  Lindisfarne,  220,  271. 
Cuthbert  (of  Canterbury)  Boniface's 

letter  to,  on  female  pilgrimages  to 

Rome,  287,  307. 
Cynan   (Caionain),  179. 
Cjmebil,  227,  248. 
Cynefrid,  271. 
Cynegils,  241,  243. 
CjTnri,  170,   176. 
Cymric,  1 80. 

Cymry  (Comrades),  186. 
Cynewulf,  265. 
Cyssebui,  254.  , 


D 


Dagan,  Bishop,  205,  267. 

Dagobert,  son,  king  of  Austria,  57. 

Daire    (Derry)    Columcille    founds 

church  and  school  at,  125-126. 
Dairius,  177. 


Dalian  Forgaill,  quoted,  64. 
Dalriada,  102,  162. 
Dalrymple,   Father,  332. 
D'Alton's    History   of    Ireland,    297, 
note. 


345 


Inde 


X 


Danes,  crushed  by  Irish  at  Clontarf, 

85;     in     Ireland,    93-94;     English 

slaves  of,  304;  in  England,  292-293, 
Daniel   (Danihel),  Bishop,  251-253. 
Darmesteter,  English  Studies,  quoted, 

52. 
Dathi,  8,  168. 

David   (Scotland),  court  of,  322. 
De  Abbatibus,  271,  274. 
De  Bello  Gothico,  167. 
De  Consulatti  Stilichonis,  167. 
de  Jubainville,  Revue  Celtique,  168. 
De  Locis  Sanctis,  Adamnan,  54,  153- 

154. 
De  Re  Militari  of  Vegetius,  76. 
Deece,  near  Tara,   174. 
Decies  in  Munster,  33,  174. 
Declan,  53. 
Degrees  conferred  in   Irish  schools, 

listed,  40-41. 
Deira,  213. 
Deise,  183. 

Deerhurst,  church  of,  281, 
Denbighshire,   171. 
Denmark,  211. 
Derry,  132,   133. 
Desii,   174. 

Desmond,  school  of,  35,  53,  173, 
Deva  (Roman),  167. 
Devon,  159,  170,  171, 
Diarmuid,  High  King,  reign  of,  106- 

108,  128. 
Diarmuid,   attendant   of    Columcille, 

138,  145,  146,  147,  202. 
Diarmuid,  King  of  Leinster,  297. 
Dicuil,      disciple     of      Columbanus, 

founds  Lure,  15;  in  England,  199. 
Dicuil,  the  Geographer,   17,  22;  his 

De    Mensura    Orhis    Tenae,    ed 

Parthey,     143;     his     journey     to 

France,  279. 
Dicuil,  missionary  in  England,  244, 

248,  255,  270. 
Dima,  son  of,  126. 
"Dind  map  Letani,"  174. 
Dinn  map  Laethain,  176. 
Diuma,  225,  226,  248,  270. 
Domesday  Book,  85,  251-252. 


Dominnach,  188. 

Donatus  (Donncadh)  of  Fiesole,  19; 

modesty  of,  23;  his  poem  on  Ire- 
land, 88, 
Donatus    (grammarian),    known    to 

Irish,  39. 
Donn   Coirci,   114. 
Dorcic,  242, 
Doss,  65. 

Douglas,  Gavin,  Mneis,  quoted. 
Dovi^th,  281. 

Drayton's    "Polyolbion,"   286. 
Drostan  in  Aberdour,  155. 
Drumceat,  Synod  of,  66-67;  meeting 

at,  in  sixth  century,  106;  work  of 

Columcille  at,  122;   Columcille  at, 

138-139. 
Drumcliff,  founded  by,  127. 
Drythelm,   56-57. 
Dublin,  gift  of  Gruffyd  to,  179. 
Dublin  Review,  272. 
Dubslane,  275, 
Dubtach,  187-188, 
Dulcert,  map  of,  27S. 
Dumbarney,  242. 
Dumbarton,  315. 
Dun  ^nghus, 
Dunbar,  Flyting  of  Dunbar  and  Ken- 

nedie,  316,  318,  333;  Golden  Targe, 

319. 
Duncan  (Ehinchad),  writings  of,  22. 
Dungal  of  St.  Denis,  his  versatility, 

22;   modesty  of,  23;  his  acumen, 

285. 
Dungal  of  Pavia,  81,  279,  285. 
Dunkeld,  I54-I55. 
Duns  Scotus,  last  of  Irish  schoolmen, 

6;   his  work  almost  unequaled  in 

human  history,  295. 
Dunstan,     185,     264,     265,     276-277; 

Irish  literati  before  and  after,  276- 

279;  abbot,  289;  statesman,  327. 
Dun  Tradui,  176. 
Durrow,     founded     by     Columcille, 

126,  139,  142. 
Dwelly,  Gaelic  Dictionary,  333. 
Dyfed,  174. 
Dymphna,  20. 


346 


Index 


E 


Eadbert,  224. 

Eadfrid,  letter  to,  256,  268,  274. 

Eadgar,  277. 

Eadmund,  328. 

Eadric,  King,  268. 

Eadwine  of   Northumbria,  205,   214, 

215. 

Eahfrid,  letter  of  Aldhelm  to,  267- 
268;  identified,  268. 

Eanfrid,  207,  214,  215. 

Earca,  162,  164. 

East  Anglia,  194,  205,  243,  244,  270. 

East  Anglians,  Irish  mission  among, 
240-241, 

East  Saxons,  225,  226;  Finan  re-con- 
verts, 226-227. 

Easter,  observance  of,  152-153;  con- 
troversy, rise  of,  227-229;  contro- 
versy, literary  product  of,  231. 

Eata,  16,  211,  234-235,  271,  273. 

Ec.  Hist.,  cited,  64-65. 

Ecgberht  of  York,  304. 

Ecgfrid,  240. 

Ecgfrith,  151. 

Echfrith,  268. 

Eddi's  life  of  Wilfrid,  cited,  57. 

Edinburgh,  329-330. 

Edgar,  charter  of,  185. 

Edward  the  Confessor,  288. 

Edward  I,  324. 

Edwin  of  Northumbria,  173,  329. 

Edwy,  King,  289, 

Egberht,  274. 

Egbert,  56;  letter  of  Bede  to,  235, 
265. 

Egypt,  Irish  in,  17. 

Einhard,    121. 

Eire,   explained,  46. 

Eleutheruis,   241. 

Elgiva,  289. 

Ely,  221,  223. 

Emain-Macha  (Emania),  112,  281. 

Empires  of  Europe,  190. 

Encyclopedia  Americana,  "Irish 
Archeological  Remains,"  Fitzpat- 
rick,  44, 

Enda,  53. 


England,  Anglo-Saxon,  civilization 
in,  3 ;  Irish  in,  9-10,  20 ;  French  in, 
86-87;  lack  of  freedom  in,  109-110; 
Irish  share  in  conversion  of,  194- 
195 ;  cannibalism  in,  201 ;  slave 
traffic  in,  201 ;  helplessness  of  bar- 
barians in,  201-203;  mission  of 
Augustine  in,  a  failure,  204-205 ; 
Irish  missionaries  in,  206-215; 
Aidan  and  foundations  in,  219-224; 
source  of  civilized  progress  in, 
265-266;  Irish  plant  arts  and  in- 
dustries in,  268-271 ;  by  time  of 
Bede  and  Alcuin,  271-274;  always 
Irish  in,  278-279 ;  whole  art  of,  trans- 
planted Irish  art,  280-282;  seed  of 
Irish  law  and  opinion  in,  282-284; 
Irish  influence  in  law  in,  282-284; 
Danes  in,  292-293 ;  Irish  authority 
in,  gives  way  to  French,  293-300; 
French  culture  in,  295-297. 

English,  literature,  sources  of,  65; 
destruction  of  Irish  literature,  76- 
79;  slaves  in  Ireland,  87-88;  as 
nation,  190-192;  ignorance  of  debt 
owed  to  Irish,  193-195;  conversion 
of,  delayed  by  neglect,  195-198;  an- 
tipathy to,  196-198;  aborigines,  repu- 
tation of,  among  civilized  peoples, 
198-201 ;  and  Irish  beginning  of 
peaceful  intercourse,  202;  civiliza- 
tion, Irish  work  beginning  of,  206- 
207;  tribes,  Aidan  among,  207-211; 
sheltered  and  educated  in  Ireland, 
214-215 ;  sentiment  of  idolatry  for 
Ireland  and  Irish,  239-240;  Irish 
influence  more  than  Roman  among, 
262-264;  aborigines,  incorrigible 
brutality  of,  287-289;  learning 
killed  at  birth,  289-293;  history, 
obscured,  290-291 ;  under  French 
rule,  294-297;  slaves  in  Ireland, 
301-313;  slaves  in  Ireland,  treat- 
ment of,  310-313;  slaves  in  En- 
gland, treatment  of,  311-313. 

English  Hist.  Review,   cited,   310. 

Eochaid,  174. 


347 


Inde: 


Eochaidh    Muighmeadhoin,    164. 

Eoghan,  107. 

Epitome  of  the  Irish  Laws  of  Metre, 

154. 
Eppa,  307. 
Ere,  sons  of,  114. 
Eric  of  Auxerre,  6 ;  Vita  S.  Germani, 

24,  59. 
Eriugena,  Johannes  Scotus,  intellec- 
tual rank,  26 ;  knowledge  of  Greek, 
25 ;  probably  a  layman,  43 ;  De 
Divisione  Naturae,  quoted,  48; 
why  works  preserved,  6g,  77;  his 
philosophy,  69;  compared  with 
Byzantine,  70;  his  association 
with  kings,  233;  not  in  England, 
275;  intellectual  eminence,  285. 


Erlebald,  81. 

Essex,  I,  95,  204,  270. 

Ethelbert,  196,  204. 

Ethelfrid,  207,  214. 

Ethelfrith,  201. 

Ethelred,  304. 

Ethelred  II,  278. 

Ethicus,   opinion   of   Ireland,   30. 

Ethne,  mother  of  Columcille,  123. 

Etto,   247. 

Eugenius  II,  establishes  schools,  80. 

Europe,    Irish    established   Hterature 

in,  22. 
Evesham,  269, 
Ewald,  56. 
Exeter  Book,  198. 
Exeter,  probably  Irish,  251,  253. 


Fabius  Ethelward,  chronicle  of,  275. 

Falmouth,  189. 

Fame,  218,  221. 

Faroe  Islands,   discovered  by  Irish, 

II;  Irish  in,   18,   189. 
Feartullagh,  307. 

Fedhlimidh,  father  of  Columcille,  123. 
Felire    of    ^ngus,    ed.    by    Stokes, 

quoted,  112. 
Felix,  198,  205;  in  East  Angles,  219; 

Bishop,  241. 
Felixstowe,  241. 
Feppingum,  226. 
Fera  Tulach,  307. 
Ferghill,  80;  of  Salzburg,  279. 
Fergus,  128;  in  Caithness,   155,   188. 
Fergus  Mor,  114-115,  162. 
Ferguson,     Sheriff,     of     Kinmundy, 

cited,  326. 
Fianna,     warrior     hosts     of,     8,     97, 

158. 
Fidach,  176. 

Fidelis,  measured   Pyramids,   17. 
Fina,  214. 
Finan,    in    England,    ao,    153,    222; 

wins    Midland    England,    224-226; 

work  of,  after  Aidan,  224-229;  re- 
converts   East    Saxons,    226-227; 

date  of  death,  229;  his  work,  231, 

233,  248,  249,  270. 


Fingen,   founds  St.  Vanmes,   17. 

Finian,  187. 

Finnachta  of  Ireland,  135,  150-151, 
152. 

Finnian,   105,   106,   123,  127-128,   129. 

Finnian   of    Clonard,    124-125. 

Finnian's  Vulgate,  148. 

Fintan,  135. 

Fitzpatrick,  Irish  Archeological  Re- 
mains, Encyclopedia  Americana, 
cited,  281. 

Flan  Fiona,  214. 

Flanders,  16. 

Flann,  43. 

Flannery,  For  the  Tongue  of  the 
Gael,  88. 

Fleming,  Collectanea  Sacra,  71. 

Florence,  school  at,  81. 

Florence    of    Worcester,    cited,    253, 

277. 
Foillan,  21,  244,  247. 
Fontaines,  241. 
Fontenelles,    founded    by    Wandres- 

gisel,  18. 
Forbes,  Bishop,  242. 
Fordun,  202. 
Fordun,  History,  318. 
Forgaill,  Dalian,  on  Columcille,  122. 
Forloc,  65. 
Fort  of  MacLeithan,  176. 


348 


Index 


Fortheri,  307. 

Fowler,  J.  T.,  cited,  122. 

France,  Irish  in,  12;  schools  in,  241. 

Fraser,  Rev.  John,  quoted,  317. 

Fredegis,  265. 

Freeman,  200. 

French,  in  Ireland,  85-86 ;  in  England, 
86-87;  authority  in  England,  Irish 
gives  way  to,  293-300;  cruelty  in 
England,  294-295;  speech  and  in- 
fluence in  Scotland,  320-323. 

Fridoald  founds  Granfelden,  16. 


Fridolin  the  Traveler,  17 ;  life  of,  60. 

Frigidian  (San  Frediano),  19. 

Frome,  250,  269. 

Froshwell,  249. 

Fudir,  302. 

Fulda,  17. 

Fultofondes,  165. 

Fursa  and  disciples,  16,  20;  inspired 
Dante,  21 ;  of  the  Visions,  route  of 
journey,  243,  244,  245;  life  and 
work  of,  246-248;  to  France,  247; 
influence,  258,  259,  270,  279. 


Gael  (Gaedhal),  explained,  8; 
Archpresbyter  of  the,  116-118;  and 
Sassenach  in  Britain,  157-160; 
in  Britain,  power  of,   175-178. 

Gaelic  language,  used  in  schools,  2>1- 

Gaidoz,  Les  gateaux  alphahetiques, 
124. 

Gainford,  221. 

Galamh,  eponym  of  Irish  race,  161. 

Gall  Christ.,  228. 

Galloway,  316,  318. 

Gallus,  modesty  of,  23. 

Gardthausen  cited,  273. 

Gartan,  birthplace  of  Columcille,  123. 

Gateshead,  224. 

Gemman,  123. 

Genere,  201. 

Georgi,  201. 

Geography,    Irish    study  of,    278. 

Germany,  Irish  in,  10,   12,  17. 

Gethlingen  (Gilling),  248. 

Gewissae,  241-242. 

Ghent,  16. 

Gibbon,  Bury's,  quoted,  72. 

Gilbert,  quoted,  90. 

Gilbert's  Viceroys,  298. 

Gildas,  at  Armagh,  55;  (younger), 
59;  quoted,  168;  cited,  169;  (of 
Wales),   179,   197. 

Giles,  238;  Aldhehni  Opera,  257,  258, 
260,  266,  268;  Epist.  ad  Acircium, 
cited,  257;  Six  Old  English  Chroni- 
cles, 276. 


Gilling,  monastery  at,  224. 

Giollacrist,  154. 

Giraldus  Cambrensis,  quoted,  86;  De- 
scription of  Wales,  cited,  86;  cited, 
92,  297. 

Girvan,  inquisition  at,  324. 

Glamorgan,  Ogham,  inscriptions  in, 
171. 

Glasnevin,   Columcille  at,   125. 

Glastingaea,   184. 

Glastonbury,  10,  183-184,  251,  276, 
277. 

Glastonia,  184, 

Glendalough,  3,  ^i,  35- 

Glossary  of  Cormac,  quoted,  163. 

Gloucester,   172. 

Gobain,  244,  247. 

Godwin,  wife  of,  304. 

Gold,  abundance  of,  in  Ireland,  91- 

Gospatric,  Earl  of  Northumbria,  115. 
Gougaud,   Les  Chretientes  Celtiques, 

94. 

Gould,  S.  Baring,  Book  of  the  West 
Cornwall,  and  Devon,   177. 

Graves,  Contemporary  Review,  I49- 

Great  Britain,  Irish  in,  12. 

Greece,  Celts  in,  89. 

Greek,  Irish  knowledge  of,  24;  in 
Ireland,  75;  teaching  of,  intro- 
duced, into  Canterbury  by  Adrian, 
267. 


349 


Index 


Green,  John  Richard,  Letters  of,  86; 
Hist,  of  England,  quoted,  269,  291, 
329. 

Green  (Mrs.),  ^rish  Nationality,  43; 
Making  of  Ireland  and  Its  Undo- 
ing, 93,  295,  310. 

Gregory  the  Great,  Moralia  as  text- 
book, 39 ;  Columbanus'  letter  to, 
70-71;  Pope,  quoted,  196;  influence. 


199,   204,   230,   263,   265,   266,   291, 

303. 
Grianan  Ely,  281. 
Grimold,  57. 

Groans  of  the  Britons,  168. 
Gruffyd,  179. 
Grumcolumb,  founded  by  Columcille, 

127. 
Gwyddel,  176. 
Gwynedd,  170. 


H 


Haddan,  Remains,  258;  cited,  307. 
Haddan    and    Stubbs,    Councils   and 

Ecclesiastical     Documents,     cited, 

187,  252. 
Hadrian,  258,  260. 
Hadrian's  wall,  166. 
Haemgils,  56-57. 

Hampshire,  Ogham  inscription  in,  171. 
Harold,  288-289. 
Harrington,  224, 

Hartlepool,  convent  at,  20,  222,  224. 
Hastings,  battle  of,  85. 
Haureau,  Singularites,  54,  71. 
Healy,    Ireland's    Ancient    Schools, 

cited,  35,  41,  51,  231 ;  Petrie's  Mon- 

utnenta,  276. 
Hean,  254,  255. 
Heavenfield,  battle  of,  215. 
Heber,  descendants  of,  161. 
Hebrides,  114,  189. 
Hedda,  222,  242. 
Heito,  81. 
Heiu,  222, 

Helera  on  the  Moselle,  60. 
Helvetia,   196. 
Hely's  Transl.  Senchus  na  Relic,  etc., 

quoted,  32. 
Hemgislus,  184. 
Hendry,  316. 

Hengist  and  Horsa,  202,  288. 
Henry   II,    of    Normandy    and    En- 
gland, 296,  297,  310,  311. 
Henry  VIII,   King  of   England,   74, 

109,   295,   296;    imperial   ambitions 


of,   299-300;  English  under,  311- 

312. 
Hereford,  28S-289. 
Heremon,  descendants  of,  161. 
Heremonian  nobility,  162. 
Hereric,  222. 
Heresuid,  223. 
Herutea,  222. 

Hexham,  273;  oratory  at,  281. 
Hibernia,  explained,  8. 
Hibernicizing  of  North  Britain,  152- 

156. 
Highlanders    and    Lowlanders    both 

Gaels,  33i-333- 
Hilary,  known  to  Irish,  39. 
Hilda,  229. 

Hiliaricum,  near  the  Saar,  60. 
Hisperica  Famina,  258. 
Hist.  Britt.,  quoted,  173. 
Hist.  Lit.  de  la  France,  22, 
Historia  de  Gestis  Regum  Anglorum, 

270. 
Historians  of  Scotland,  122. 
Hodgkin,   Political   History   of   En- 
gland, 287. 
Hogan,     The    Irish    People,     Their 

Height,  Form  and   Strength,   157. 
Hohenau,  183. 
Holder,  Alt-Celtischer  Sprachschats, 

9,  90,  176. 
Hole,  D.  C.  B.,  260. 
Holland,  Irish  in,  12. 
Holland,  Philemon,  333. 
Holy  Land,  Pellegrinus  in,  17. 
Holyhead,  178. 


350 


Index 


Homer,  lOO. 

Honau,   lo. 

Honorius  of  Canterbury,  219,  241. 

Horace,  oldest  manuscript  in  Irish 
hand,  75,   124. 

Howell,  James,  Familiar  Letters, 
quoted,  332. 

Huber,  cited,  275. 

Howorth,  Golden  Days  of  the  En- 
glish Church,  quoted,  206,  224,  264. 


Hume,  320. 

Hutton,  Finding  of  the  Tain,  quoted, 

33;    Writing  of  the   Tain,  quoted, 

35,  168. 
Hy,  island  of,  130. 
Hy  Fiachrach,  66. 
Hy  Niall,  142. 
Hyde,  Literary  History  of  Ireland, 

42,  79,   126,   145,   162;   MacTernan 

Prize  Essays,  cited,  65. 


Iceland,  discovered  by  Irish,  10 ;  Irish 
in,  17,  18;  Cormac  in,  143,  189. 

Ichtian  Sea,  176. 

Iliad,  119. 

In  Pisonem  of  Cicero,  in  Irish,  75. 

In  te  Christe,  148. 

Ina,  dooms  of,  304,  184,  188. 

"Indarba  mna  n  Dese,"  174. 

Inis  Eoghain.  king  of,  308. 

Inisboffin,  236,  237. 

Iniscathy,  220. 

Ingelborne,  250. 

Ingethlingum,  226. 

lona,  3,  21,  54;  Columcille  at,  126; 
cause  of  Columcille's  exile  to,  127, 
129;  established,  130;  Columcille 
and  brethren  at,  131-156;  guests  at, 
134;  almsgiving  at,  134;  ritual  and 
ceremonial  at,  134-136;  authority 
of  abbot  at,  136 ;  literary  work  and 
other  occupations  at,  136-140; 
drought  at,  note,  137 ;  last  scene  at, 
14S-158;  Adamnan  at,  149-154; 
successors  of  Columcille  at,  154; 
decline  of,  154-155 ;  burial  place  of 
kings  of  Scotland,  155,  182,  187; 
Saxons  at,  201,  207,  209;  Oswald 
at,  214;  Easter  in,  263. 

Ir,  descendants  of,   161. 

Ireland,  home  of  Western  learning, 
1-4. 

Ireland,  schools  of,  3-4;  literary  out- 
put in,  4;  beginning  of  Christianity 
in,  7-8;  claim  to  great  past,  12; 
ark  of  safety  for  the  old  wisdom, 
27-31 ;    not    included    in    ruin    of 


Roman  civilization,  28,  ff ;  peace 
and  prosperity  in,  29,  ff ;  beginning 
of  Gaelic  monarchy  in,  29;  Celtic 
invasions  of,  29 ;  Milesian  dynasty 
in,  29-30;  culture  in,  before  St. 
Patrick,  30;  Christians  in,  before 
St.  Patrick,  31 ;  educational  pro- 
ficiency of,  31-35;  universities  in, 
after  introduction  of  Christianity, 
32;  intellectual  leader  of  Christen- 
dom, 52-55 ;  foreign  students  and 
visitors  in,  53-55;  Anglo-Saxon 
students  in,  55-57 ;  foreign  students 
in,  to  twelfth  century,  59-61 ; 
professional  and  lay  educa- 
tion in,  62-65 ;  secular  schools  in, 
proof  of  existence,  63-64;  secular 
education  in,  reorganized,  66;  cul- 
tivation of  philosophy  in,  69;  En- 
glish destruction  in,  74-75;  high 
culture  of  a  living  reality,  73-76; 
establishment  of  Gaelic  kingdom 
in,  84;  medieval,  military  strength 
and  wealth  of,  84-87;  emigra- 
tion of  Norman  French  and 
Flemish  to,  85-86;  English 
slaves  in,  87-88;  not  isolated 
from  Europe,  88-90;  Romans 
in,  89;  luxurious  civilization 
in,  90-91 ;  abundance  of  gold 
in,  91-94;  Danes  in,  93-94; 
Christian,  pagan  spirit  in,  96-98; 
home  of  liberal  arts,  104;  of  the 
sixth  century,  104-110;  sense  of 
freedom  in,  109;  always  civilization 
in,  no;  ancient  pagan  and  medieval 


351 


Inde; 


Christian,  110-113;  civilization  of 
Celts  in,  111-112;  and  Britain, 
moving  world  of,  131-134;  Roman 
coins  on  east  coast  of,  173 ;  im- 
perial status  of,  185^-192;  English 
sheltered  and  educated  in,  214-215; 
stone  churches  in,  224;  and  Irish, 
English  sentiment  of  idolatry  for, 
239-240;  Aldhelm  and  English  stu- 
dents in,  256-258;  Easter  custom 
in,  262-263 ;  socalled  "Norman  Con- 
quest" of,  297-298;  conquest  of, 
299;  English  slaves  in,  301-313; 
high  monarchs  of,  334-335- 
Irish,  language  as  literary  vehicle,  4; 
culture,  missionary  instinct  of,  4-6; 
Mission,  5;  medieval  v^rork,  variety 
and  extent  of,  8-12;  language  and 
literature  studied,  11;  founders  of 
churches  and  cities,  13-17;  in 
Egypt,  17;  in  Germany,  17;  in  Ice- 
land, 17,  18;  in  Scandinavia,  17; 
from  Iceland  to  Pyramids,  17-20; 
in  Faroe  Islands,  18;  in  England, 
20;  in  Scotland,  20;  skilled  in 
human  learning,  20-23;  established 
literature  in  Europe,  22;  pioneers, 
modesty  of,  22;  mortifications 
voluntarily  endured  by,  23 ;  knowl- 
edge of  Greek,  24 ;  laws,  ancient, 
35 ;  schools  listed,  35 ;  monasteries, 
centers  of  intellectual  activity,  36- 
38;  language,  used  in  schools,  2>7\ 
la>'men,  learned,  42-44;  text-books 
and  learned  degrees,  38-41 ;  learn- 
ing. 37-38;  preeminence  in  metal 
work,  44;  colleges  from  sixth  cen- 
tury, 44-46 ;  language,  uniform,  45 ; 
method  of  education,  45 ;  monas- 
ticism,  different  from  continental, 
46-48 ;  "Philosophy"  and  "Wisdom," 
46-48;  students,  numbers  of,  49-51 ; 
university  centers,  importance  of, 
49-51 ;  colleges  for  princes,  57-59 ', 
culture,  original  and  independent, 
67-70;  Triads,  quoted,  67;  school- 
men, self-assurance  of,  71 ;  aim  to 
teach  Europe,  68;  culture,  devotion 
to  preservation  of,  68-69;  language 


in  Europe  and  Asia,  72;  teachers 
abroad,  73 ;  literature,  small  preser- 
vation of,  in  Ireland,  73-74;  Irish 
libraries,  74-79;  manuscript,  oldest 
in  Switzerland,  75 ;  literature,  only 
fraction  of  what  existed,  77-79; 
scholars  in  Carolingian  era, 
79-80;  genealogy  of  Carolingian 
schools,  79-82;  organization  of  city 
and  Christian  society,  82-83 ;  litera- 
ture, importance  of,  89;  dress  de- 
scribed, 90;  names  in  Europe,  90; 
jewels,  collection  of,  91;  scholars, 
exodus  of,  94-99;  missionary  zeal, 
94-101 ;  literature,  romance  in,  98- 
99;  invasion  and  conquest  of  Scot- 
land, twofold,  102-104;  literature, 
110-112;  Heroic  cycle,  112;  military 
conquest  of  Scotland,  113-115;  as 
language  of  Scotland,  115;  anxious 
to  see  Columcille,  141 ;  exploration, 
from  time  of  Columcille,  143-144; 
records,  accuracy  of,  145;  in  Scot- 
land, 154-156;  physique  of,  note, 
157;  clans  in  Britain,  160-163; 
pedigrees,  note,  162;  military  expe- 
ditions abroad,  163-166;  in- 
vasions of  Britain,  163-170;  Nen- 
nius,  pub.  of  I.  A.  S.,  cited,  164; 
kings  in  Britain,  166-170;  in 
Wales,  170-189;  foundations  in 
Wales,  181-186;  intellectual  inter- 
course with  Britain,  186-189;  En- 
glish ignorance  of  debt  owed  to, 
193-195 ;  share  in  conversion  of  En- 
gland, 194-195 ;  work  beginning  of 
English  civilization,  206-207;  mis- 
sionaries in  England,  206-215 ; 
prelate  and  Anglian  king,  211-213; 
founders,  high  birth  and  breeding 
of,  232-234;  clerics,  frugality  and 
devotion  of,  234-236;  channels  of 
entry  into  Britain,  243-245;  influ- 
ence, more  than  Roman,  among 
English,  262-264;  script,  total  use 
of,  in  Anglo-Saxon  ms.,  265 ;  schol- 
ars and  schools,  fame  of,  267-268; 
plant  arts  and  industries  in  En- 
gland, 268-271 ;  scholars  and  King 


352 


Index 


Alfred,  274-276;  literati  before 
and  after  Dunstan,  276-279;  influ- 
ence in  Anglo-Saxon  art,  280-282; 
crosses  in  England,  280-282;  archi- 
tecture in  England,  281-282 ;  in 
Scotland,  314-333 ;  literature,  refer- 
ences to  English  slavery  in,  307- 
308;  English  reverence  for,  293- 
294;  authority  in  England  gives 
way  to  French,  293-300;  civiliza- 
tion, English  mediocre  imitation 
of,  285-287;  law  and  opinion,  seed 
of    in   England,    282-284;    Abridg- 


mcn  of  Expugnatio  Hibernica,  ed. 
Stokes,  quoted,  310;  kings  of  Scot- 
land, 336;  names  and  surnames  in 
Scotland,  323-329;  place-names  in 
Scotland,  329-331 ;  tongue  in  Scot- 
land, 315-320. 

Isca  Silurum   (Roman),  167. 

Isidore,  known  to  Irish,  39,  331. 

Isle  of  Man,  Ogham  inscriptions  in, 
170-171. 

Italy,  Upper,  Irish  in,  12. 

Ithancester,  227,  249. 


JaflFe,  Mon.  Mag.,  cited,  307. 

James,  Deacon,  205. 

James  IV  of  Scotland,  315. 

James  VI,  315. 

Juvencus,  known  to  Irish,  39. 

Jarrow,  3 ;  Adamnan  at,  152,  271, 
273. 

Jedburgh  Castle,  281. 

Jerome,  authority  on  Scripture,  39, 
48. 

Jerusalem,   Irish  at,   275. 

Johannes  Glastoniensis,  185. 

John,  Irish  missionary,  in  Sclavonia, 
17;  of  Tinmouth  and  Columcille, 
123;  (Bishop),  222;  name  of,  251- 
252 ;  of  Beverly,  271 ;  the  Saxon, 
275,  276;  of  Fordun,  cited,  331. 

Johnson,  Dr.,  320. 


Johnston,  Place-Nantes  in  Scotland, 

cited,  330. 
Jonas,  cited,  199, 
Jones,  Rev.  W.  Basil,  Vestiges  of  the 

Gael  in   Gwynedd,   cited,    170-171, 

172. 
Josephus  Scotus,  272. 
Jouarre,  223. 
Jovinus,    105. 
Joyce,    Social    History    of    Ireland, 

cited,  41;  quoted,  42;  cited,  49,  51, 

64,  145.  302,  313;  Irish  Names  of 

Places,   cited,    330. 
Justinian,  Emperor,  72. 
Justus,  205. 
Jutland,  198. 
Juvenal's  Satires,  89. 


K 


Keating,  History,  41,  66-67,   163-164, 

182. 
Kemble,    Codex    Diplomaticus,    184, 

268. 
Kennedy,  Walter,  316. 
Kenneth  mac  Alpin,  155 ;  King,  2-7- 
Kent,  194,  195,  199,  204;  Romans  in, 

263,  268;  Irish  active  in,  266-267. 
Keller,  Dr.  Ferdinand,  mentioned,  81. 
Kells,    44;    founded    by    Columcille, 

127;  use  of,  155,  158. 


Kells,  Book  of,  12. 

Kelly,  Matthew,  cited,  193,  253. 

Kerry,  Ogham   inscriptions  in,  171. 

Kilbally,  foreigners  in,  56. 

Kilbirnie,  242. 

Kildare,  221. 

Kilglass,  founded  by  Columcille,  127, 

Killian,  17. 

Kil-mac-menain,  123. 

Kirkdale,  church  of,  281. 

Knowth,  281. 


24 


353 


Index 


Lactantius,  known  to  Irish,  39,  300. 

Lake  of  Glasfrya  Uchaf,  178. 

Land's  End,  188, 

Lanfranc,  309. 

Lang,  Andrew,  cited,  324. 

Lanigan,  179;  Eccl.  History  of  Ire- 
land, cited,  253. 

Laon,  247. 

Lap-dog  in  Ireland,  first,  176. 

Lastingham  (Lestingau),  227, 

Latin  in  Ireland,  75. 

Laurentius,  205. 

Lawrence,  204,  205,  267. 

Lay  students  in  Ireland,  62-65;  edu- 
cation, first  in  Europe,  81. 

Laymen,  learned  Irish,  42-44- 

Leabar  Breac,  cited,  158. 

Leabar  na  g-Ceart,  cited,  307,  308, 
310. 

Leeds,  224 ;  Hist.  Eccl,  cited,  226. 

Leinster,  115;  school  of  bards,  Col- 
umcille  at,   123,  161,  162. 

Leofric,  Bishop,  198. 

Leslie,  Bishop,  De  Gestis  Scotorum, 
cited,  332. 

Lestingham,  249. 

Lethain,  141. 

Lethredh,  202. 

Lethrigh,  202. 

Leutherius,   Bishop,  251. 

Lex  Adamnani  (Cain  Adhemhnain), 

152. 
Leyden  Priscian,   188. 
"Liadain  and  Curithir,"  story  of,  98- 

99. 
Liber  Hymnorum,  148,  154. 
Lichfield,  249. 


Liege,  Irish  in,  ll,  75,  187,  188. 

Lightfoot,  Bishop,  cited,  195;  Lead- 
ers of  the  Northern  Church,  cited, 
220. 

Lindisfarne,  10,  20,  194,  211,  218,  221, 
224,  230,  232,  234,  271,  272. 

Lismore,  3 ;  founded  by  Carthach,  33, 

54- 

Literature  in  Ireland,  small  preser- 
vation of,  73-74;  in  Ireland  in  sixth 
century,  106;  in  Ireland  in  seventh 
century,  106;  Irish,  110-112;  func- 
tions of,  131. 

Liudger,  273. 

Liverpool,  224, 

Livinus,  16. 

Loarn,  114. 

London,  205. 

Lothair  II,  75. 

Lothaire  of  Italy,  establishes  schools, 
80-81. 

Lough  Neagh,  178. 

Louis  the  Pious,  80. 

Low  Countries,  Irish  in,  16. 

Lowlanders  and  Highlanders  both 
Gaels,  331-333. 

Lucretius  known  to  Irish,  39. 

Lugair,  219. 

Lugdan,  166. 

Lughaidh,  162. 

Luidhard,  Bishop,  196, 

Lure,  founded  by  Dicuil,  15. 

Luxeuil,  founded  by  Columbanus,  15, 
23,  182,  241. 

Lynch,  Camhrensis  Eversus,  cited, 
183,  I93i  220. 


M 


Mabillon,  47,  179;  Annal  Ord.  St. 
Bened.,  cited,  228. 

MacFarlane,  Baxter's  Call  to  the  Un- 
converted, 319-320. 

MacFuirmeadh,  65. 

MacNeacail,  H.  C,  Scottish  Review, 
cited,  333. 


MacNeill,  29;  Phases  of  Irish  His- 
tory, cited,  114;  New  Ireland  Re- 
view, cited,  162 ;  Royal  Irish  Acad., 
cited,  172, 

MacPherson,  James,  quoted,  319. 

Macaulay,  History  of  England,  cited, 
297.  321-322. 


354 


Index 


Macbeth,  quoted,   I55,  275. 
Mackinnon,  Professor,  cited,  316. 
Macleane,   Pembroke   College,  cited, 

295. 
Macrobius,  known  to  Irish,  39. 
Madelgisilus,  247. 
Maelceadar,   16. 
Maeldubh,  20,  58,  244. 
Maelduf  and  other  Irishmen  in  Wes- 

sex,  250-253,  260. 
Maelinmain,  275. 
Maelrubha  of  Skye,  155. 
Maeve,  Queen,   120. 
Mageo,  237. 
Magna  Carta,  109;  French  influence 

in,  296. 
Magnoald,  19. 
Maidoc,  53. 

Mair   (Major),  John,  quoted,  315. 
Major,   Historie  of  Scotland,  cited, 

332. 
Malcolm  IV,  323. 
Malcolm,  328. 
Malmesbury,      10;      derivation      of 

name,  58,  183,  244,  250-251,  269. 
Manuscripts,  old,  in  Irish,  75-76. 
Maolcalain,  Abbot,  17. 
Map  of  the  world,  Anglo-Saxon  Cot- 

toniana,  278. 
Marcus,  bishop  of  Soissons,  59-60,  81. 
Marianus  Scotus,   17;   Irish  founda- 
tions established  by,  83,  279. 
Marius  Victorinus,  known  to  Irish, 

39- _ 
Martianus  Capella,  known  to   Irish, 

39. 

ISIartyrology  of  Marianus  Ua  Ger- 
main, 183. 

Matthew  of  Paris,  cited,  295, 

Maximinanus  Herudeus,  249. 

Maximus,  169. 

Maxwell,  Studies  in  the  Topography 
of  Galloway,  cited,  330. 

Mayo  of  the  Saxons,  58,  61 ;  founded 
by  Colman,  236-238. 

Mayor's,  Bede,  cited,  259. 

Meath,  kingdom  of,  founded,  107 ; 
attack  on,  151,  162. 

Mellitus,  205,  226. 


Melrose,   211,  221,  234,  271,  273. 

Menevia,  276. 

Menzies,  Lucy,  St.  Columba  of  lona, 
cited,  122. 

Mercia,  195,  243,  270;  Duima,  Chad, 
and  Ceallach  in,  248-249. 

Mercians,  218,  225. 

Merioneth,  171. 

Mermin,  King,  187. 

Meroving,  ed.  Krusch,  60. 

Metz,  Irish  in,  11,  17. 

Meyer,  Kultur  der  Gegenwart, 
quoted,  11 ;  Ancient  Irish  Poetry, 
quoted,  45 ;  Early  Relations  be- 
tween the  Gael  and  Brython,  cited, 
145;  Otia  Mersciana,  cited,  168; 
Cymmrodor,  cited,   174. 

Miathi,  battle  of,  202. 

Michael  Scotus,  25. 

Micklewaite,  Archeological  Journal, 
quoted,  281,  282. 

Midland  England,  won  by  Finan, 
224-226. 

Migne,  Patrologia,  Latina,  cited,  24, 
71,  88,  118,  154,  168,  169,  196,  197, 
199,  221,  231,  256,  262,  268,  271,  272, 
277,  279. 

Milan,  Irish  in,  11,  187. 

Milesian  dynasty  in  Ireland,  29-30, 
84-85 ;   descendants,   161. 

Milesius,  descendants  of,   161. 

Military  strength  of  medieval  Ire- 
land, 84-87. 

Milman,  History  of  Latin  Christian- 
ity, cited,  295. 

Milne,  Gaelic  Place-Names  in  the 
Lothians,  cited,  330. 

Mission  of  Augustine  a  failure,  204- 
205. 

Mitchell,  Rev,  Anthony,  quoted,  149. 

Miurchartach,  164. 

Mobhi,  Columcille  with,  125. 

Mochona,  quoted,  95. 

Mochta,   179. 

Modan  in  Stirling,  155. 

Modesty  of  Irish  pioneers,  22, 

Moengal,  81,  82. 

Molaisse,  140. 

"Molossian  hounds,"  266. 


355 


Index 


Molurg  in  Lismore,  155. 

Mon.  Germ.  Hist.,  cited,  60,  96,  168, 

169. 
Monasterboice,  35. 
Monasteries,    Irish,    36;    in    Wales, 

181-186;   founded  by  Aidan,  219- 

224;  double,  221,  223-224. 
Monasticism,   difference  in,   46-48. 
Mone,  Quellensanimlung  der  badischcn 

Landesgeschichte,  cited,   60. 
Monkwearmouth,  271,  273. 
Monmouth,   172. 
Monnier,     Alcuin     et     Charlemagne, 

cited,  273 ;  quoted,  47. 
Montalembert,     testimony     of,     18; 

Monks  of  the  West,  quoted,  194- 

195- 
Montelius,  quoted,  92. 
Montfaucon,  47. 
Montgomeryshire,  171. 


"Monumenta  Moguntina,"  cited,  252. 

Moohar  on  eastern  coasts,  155. 

Moray,  316. 

Morini's  life  of  Cathaldus,  cited,  54. 

Morrigan,  war-goddess,  120. 

Moville,  3,  35 ;  Columcille  at,  123. 

Mug  Eime,  176. 

Mugeime,  cited,   174. 

Mugeor  Ua  More,  43. 

Mull,  133. 

Mun  in  Argyle,  155. 

Munro,  Donald,  319. 

Munster,  115;  kings  of,  161;  tribes 
in  Wales,  170;  Irishmen  of,  in 
south  Wales  and  Cornish  penin- 
sula, 161 ;  Irish,  distinguishing 
characteristics  of,  162-163. 

Mura,  on  Columcille,  122. 

Music,  taught  by  Irish,  21. 


N 


Nectarides,  165. 

Nennius,  quoted,  158. 

Neo-Platonists,  works  of,  in  Ireland, 
39- 

Nesta,  297. 

New  Grange,  281. 

Newbiggin,  224. 

Newman,  Cardinal,  286;  Historical 
Sketches,  43,  47,  95- 

Niall,  reign  marked  beginning  of 
epoch,  107;  of  the  Nine  Hostages, 
164,  166,  167,  168;  King,  descend- 
ants of,  334. 

Nicene    and    Post    Nicene    Fathers, 

303. 
Nicolaus  von  Cues,  76. 
Nile  Valley,  Irish  in,  10. 


Noli,  Pater,  148. 

Norham,  221. 

North  Britain,  Hibernicizing  of,  152- 
156. 

Norman  Invasion  or  Conquest  of 
Ireland,  note  on,  74. 

Norman  Conquest,  socalled,  of  En- 
gland, 294. 

North  Wales,  170;  Ogham  inscription 
in,  171. 

Northumbria,  220,  243;  influence  and 
learning  of,  270;  connection  with 
Clonmacnois,  272. 

Notitia  Dignitatum,  167. 

Notker  Balbulus,  123. 

Nuneaton,  224. 


O 


O'Curry,  Lectures,  cited,  35;  Man- 
ners and  customs,  cited,  41,  66, 
142. 

Odoacer,  72. 

O'Donovan,  quoted,  17S ;  Tribes  and 
Customs  of  Hy  Many,  quoted,  298 ; 
cited,  310. 


Offa,  214. 

Oftfor,  222, 

Ogham,     163;     mscriptions,     where 

found,  171-173,  188. 
"Ogygia,"  cited,  31. 
O'Hart,   Irish  Pedigrees,  cited,   162, 

234,  307- 


356 


Index 


Oisin  (Ossian),  poems  of,  97,  158. 

Ollamh  (ollave),  65. 

OUiol  Olum,  141. 

Orgiall,  162. 

Origen,  known  to  Irish,  40. 

O'Reilly,  Irish   Writers,  cited,  42. 

Orkney  Islands,  142,  189. 

Orosis,  291. 

Orosius,  known  to  Irish,  39. 

Osbern,  Vita  S.  Dunstani,  cited,  184; 

of  Canterbury,  cited,  277. 
Oslaf,  214. 
Oslar,  214. 


Ossianic  Society,  Trans.,  referred  to, 

9.  67,  88. 
Oswald,   king   of    Northumbria,   58, 

194,  206-208;  and  Aidan,  211-213; 

214-215,  242. 
Oswiedu,  214. 

Oswin,  58,   194;  death  of,  217,  225. 
Oswin's  veneration  for  Aidan,  216- 

219. 
Oswy,  214,  226,  228,  234. 
Ovid,    oldest    manuscript,    in    Irish 

hand,  75. 
Oxford,  286,  295. 


Paderborn,  17. 

Pagan  spirit  in  Christian  Ireland,  96- 
98. 

Paris,  200. 

Parliament  of  Tara,  128;  French  es- 
tablishment of,  296-297. 

Partney,  255. 

Paschal  controversy,  225,  230. 

Patrick,  158,  182. 

Pauli,  Life  of  Alfred  the  Great,  cited, 
276. 

Paulinus,  cited,  54-55,  205,  221. 

Pa  via,  81. 

Peada,  225,  226. 

Pelagius,  5,  25,  179,  180,  182. 

Pellegrinus,  to  Holy  Land,  17-18. 

Pembrokeshire,  Ogham  inscriptions 
in,  171,  183. 

Penda,  205,  218,  225,  247;  of  Mercia, 
288. 

Penitentials,  system  of,  originated, 
25-26. 

Peregesius  of  Priscian,  278. 

Pcregrini,   Irish,  description  of,   14, 

95. 
Perran,  Zabuloe,  189. 
Perrone,  founded  by  Fursa,  15 ;  Cel- 

lan,  abbot  of,  258. 
Peter  the  Irishman,  at  University  of 

Naples,  25. 
Petrie,     Ecclesiastical     Architecture, 

cited,  54,  133- 
Petroc,  189. 
Petrockstow,  189. 


Piacenza,  81. 

Piala,  i8r. 

Picardy,  241. 

Piers  the  Plowman,  296. 

Pilgrims,   19-20. 

Pila,  201. 

Pinkerton,  Enquiry,  quoted,  21 ;  cited, 

122. 
Piran,  189. 

Pizigani,  map  of,  278. 
Plato,  Irish  familiar  with,  39. 
Philosophy,  Irish  cultivation  of,  69. 
Photius,  68,  70. 
Plechelm,  56. 

Plummer's  Bede,  cited,  183. 
Poetae   Latini  Aevi   Carolini,   cited, 

88,  136. 
Pope  Leo,  known  to  Irish,  39. 
Porthmawr,  177. 
Posidonius,  cited,  89. 
Potentin,  abbot  of  Coutances,  15. 
Power  of  the  Gael  in  Britain,  175- 

178. 
Prince  Cummuscaeg,  180. 
Priscian,    known    to    Irish,   39,    72; 

Peregesius  of,  2jZ. 
Proceedings  Roy.  Irish  Acad.,  cited, 

168. 
Psellus,  70. 

Psalms,  Finnan's  copy  of,  127. 
Ptolemy  on  Ireland,  cited,  89. 
Pyramids,       measured       by      Irish 

(Fidelis),  il,  17. 


357 


Index 


Q 


Quadrivium,  2)7- 

Quellen     u.      Untersuchungen 


latcinischen    Philologie    des    Mit- 
telaltcrs,  cited,  55. 


R 


Radnorshire,  171. 

Radstow,  189. 

Ragallach,  59. 

Raine,  cited,  268. 

Rait,  Professor,  cited,  314. 

Rashdall,  University,  cited,  295. 

Rath  Croghan,  168. 

Rebais,  library  of,  74. 

Red  Sea,  explored  by  Irish,  11. 

Redwald,  205. 

Rees,  Lives  of  Cantbro-British 
Saints,  cited,  183. 

Reeves,  Life  of  St.  Columba,  cited, 
51,  108;  ed.  Adamnan's  work  on 
Columcille,  122;  Life  of  St.  Col- 
umba, by  Adamnan,  cited,  142 ; 
Proceedings  of  the  Royal  Irish 
Acad.,  cited,  145;  cited,  147;  Life 
of  St.  Columba,  cited,  154;  Adam- 
nan,  cited,  202 ;  Genealogical  Table, 
cited,  234. 

Registrum  Epistolarum,  quoted,  70- 
71 ;  cited,  230. 

Registrum  Prioratus  S.  Andreae, 
cited,  318. 

Registrum  Vetus  de  Aberbrothoc, 
cited,  318. 

Regulus  of  Orkney,  143. 

Reichenau,  10,  183. 

Reid,  ArchcBology,  quoted,  92. 

Remi,   father  of  pilgrims,   19. 

Remiremont,  223,  241. 

Repton,  224. 

Rhabanus  Maurus,  59,  68,  79,  148, 
179. 

Rheims,  Irish  in,  11. 

Rheinau,  10,  183. 

Rhys  Ap  Tudor,  397. 

Rhys,  The  Welsh  People,  cited,  159; 
Revue  Celtique,  cited,  178;  Early 
Britain,  cited,  329^ 


Riada,  II4. 

Richard  Cceur  de  Lion,  296. 

Richard  de  Clare,  297. 

Richard  II,  298. 

Richborough,  178. 

Richey,  Short  History,  cited,  41. 

Ridgeway,  Early  Age  of  Greece, 
cited,  89;  First  Slujping  of  the 
Cuchulain  Saga,  cited,  89;  Who 
Were  the  Romans?  cited,  89. 

Rimner,  Ancient  Stone  Crosses  of 
England,  cited,  189. 

Robertson,  Scotland  under  Her  Early 
Kings,  cited,  314;  quoted,  326. 

Rodalgus,  247. 

Roger  de  Hoveden,  cited,  250,  258. 

Roman  civilization,  decline  and  fall 
of,  27-28;  learning,  in  Ireland,  102- 
103 ;  Empire,  Irish  colonies  in,  103 ; 
aid  to  Britain,  167;  missionaries  to 
English,  199. 

Romans  in  Ireland,  89. 

Romanus  (Ronan?),  228. 

Rome,  Irish  in,  11 ;  Celts  in,  89;  Irish 
at,  275. 

Romulus  Augustus,  72. 

Ronan,  225,  227-228. 

Ro-sualt,  64. 

Royal  Irish  Academy  at  Dublin,  col- 
lection of,  91. 

Ruadhan,  conflict  of  Diarmuid  with, 
108. 

Ruaidhri  Ua  Concobhair,  King,  3,  332. 

Ruadri,  188, 

Rudpert,  19. 

Ruffinianus,  205. 

Rumold,  16. 

Ruthwell  Cross,  281,  282. 


358 


Index 


St  Abb's  Head,  221. 

St  Aidan,  206;  rule  of,  284. 

St  Ailbe,  177. 

St  Algise  (France),  247. 

St  Andrew's  monastery,  263. 

St  Anskar,  211. 

St.  Augustine,  178. 

St  Balthere's,  221. 

St  Bee's  Head,  185. 

St  Begha  (Bee),  20. 

St  Benedict  of  Aniane,  264;  rule  of, 

284. 
St  Bernard,  quoted,  6;  Vita  Malach, 

quoted,  99. 
St  Brendan  the  Navigator,  278. 
St  Brigid,  185,  2ig. 
St  Burian,  188. 
St  Cadoc,  183. 
St  Cadroc,  179. 
St.   Columba,   importance   of  church 

of,  25-26,  206. 
St.  Columcille, 
St  Cuthbert  221. 
St  Cuthbert's  Cross,  281. 
St.  David's  of  Menevia,  177,  182-183, 

276. 
St  Dunstan,  19,  183. 
St  Eata,  19. 
St  Eligius,  303. 
St  Eloi,  19. 

St.  Fiachra  (Fiacre),  19. 
St  Fingar,  Acts  of,  cited,  181. 
St  Fintan,  177. 
St.   Gall,   10;    founded   by   Ceallach 

(Gallus),  15,  21 ;  Monk  of,  quoted, 

47;  library  of,  74;  monks  of,  80; 

lay  education   at   81-82;   plan   of 

monastery,  81-83. 
St  Gall  Priscian,  188. 
St.  Gobain,  247. 
St.  Guthlac,  198. 

St.  Hieronymi  Eptst.,  cited,  168. 
St.  HieronymuSj  Columbanus  on,  71. 
St.  Hilda,  222, 
St  la,  189. 
St  Ives,  189. 
St  Jerome,  note  on  Ireland,  31 ;  Com- 


ment on  Galatians,  quoted,  72 ; 
cited,  168. 

St.  Kebi,  183. 

St  Levan,  188. 

St  Livinus,  188. 

St  Malachy,  43. 

St.  Martin,  shrine  of,  19. 

St.  Martin's  church,  281. 

St  Mary's,  monastery  of,  224. 

St  Michael,  17. 

St  Molaise  of  Devenish,  129. 

St.  Oswin,  cross  of,  282. 

St.  Patrick,  importance  of  church  of, 
25-26;  note  on  Ireland,  31,  53,  118; 
life  of,  by  Adamnan,  154,  167,  184, 
185,  231-232. 

St  Peter's,  abbey  of,  205;  Church  at 
Bamborough,  213. 

St.  Piran,  188-189. 

St.  Quentin,  Mont,  16. 

St  Tressan  at  Rheims,  17. 

St.  Ursanne,  hospital  at  18. 

St.  Wulstan,  309. 

Salzburg,  Irish  in,  11 ;  Ferghill  bishop 
of,  80. 

Sanas  Chormaic,  ed.  Stokes,  quoted, 
163. 

Sassenach  and  Gael  in  Britain,  157- 
160. 

Scandinavia,  Irish  in,  17. 

Scot  Dalriada,  136,  139. 

Scotia  explained,  89;  used  in  con- 
trast to  Hibernia,  57;  Major,  115; 
Minor,  115. 

Scotland  explained,  8;  Irish  first  in, 
8-9;  Irish  in,  20;  Irish  kings  in, 
115;  twofold  Irish  invasion  and 
conquest  of,  102-104;  Irish  military 
conquest  of,  113-115;  Irish  in,  154- 
156;  Ogham  inscriptions  in,  171; 
English  slaves  in,  305 ;  Irish  in, 
2'^A-2ii',  theory  of  expulsion  of 
Irish  from,  314-31S;  Irish  tongue 
in.  315-320;  French  speech  and  in- 
fluence in,  Z20~i2i',  beginning  of 
English  language  in,  322-323;  Irish 
names  and  surnames  in,  323-329 ; 


359 


Index 


expulsion  of  English  from,  325- 
326;  Anglicization  of,  328;  Irish 
place-names  in,  329-331 ;  Irish 
kings  of,  336. 

Scott,  De  Unione  Regnorum  Brit- 
ainniae,  cited,  315. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  333. 

Scotus,  explained,  8,  9. 

Screen,  founded  by,  127. 

Sechnall,  poems  of,  31. 

Seckingen  on  the  Rhine,  60,  183. 

Sedulius  Scotus,  5 ;  works  of,  31 ; 
known  to  Irish,  39;  Scotus,  col- 
lection of  manuscript  excerpts,  76, 
178,  180,  187,  188,  233,  279,  285. 

Segenus,  231. 

Seginus,  209. 

Senan,  53,  220. 

Sencleithe,  302. 

Seneca,  known  to  Irish,  39. 

Sherborne,  250,  269. 

Sidnaceaster  (Stow),  255. 

Sidonius  Apollinaris,  210. 

Sigebert,  225,  226,  240-241,  245. 

Sigeric,  Archbishop,  278. 

Sigfrid,  221,  271, 

Simeon  of  Durham,  chronicles,  270; 
cited,  284,  290. 

Sigisbert,  founds  Abbey  of  Dissentis, 
16. 

Silures,  174. 

Silva  Gadelica,  cited,  64,  180. 

Singularites,  quoted,   71. 

Sixth  century,  Ireland  of,  104-110. 

Slavery,  English,  301-313;  English, 
prohibitions  against,  304;  English, 
references  to  in  Irish  literature, 
307-308. 

Slaves,  English,  in  Ireland,  301-313. 

Skene,  Celtic  Scotland,  referred  to, 
9;  quoted  and  cited,  36,  49,  51. 

Slane,  57-59- 

Sleswick,  198. 

Small  Primer,  cited,  41. 

Smith,  E.  A.,  quoted,  92. 

Smollett,  Tobias,  cited,  3Z3' 

Soissons,  223. 

Solway  Firth,  189. 


South  Saxons,  244. 

South  Shields,  224. 

Somerset,  159,  170,  172,  184,  188,  276- 
277. 

South  Wales,  170. 

Spain,   Greco-Roman   culture  in,   2. 

Speckled  Book  (Leabar  Breac),  on 
Columcille,  123 ;  cited,  140 ;  of  Dun 
Doighre,  183. 

Spenser,  View  of  the  State  of  Ire- 
land, quoted,  29;  quoted,  53. 

Staigue  Fort,  281. 

"Statutes  of  Kilkenny,"  298. 

Stephen,  King  of  England,  115. 

Stevenson,  Bede,  cited,  228. 

Stilicho,  Flavins,  167. 

Stokes,  Anecdota  Oxoniensia,  cited, 

SI. 
Strabo,  Walafrid,  cited,  81 ;  Life  of 

Blaithm<ic,  quoted,  88;  quoted,  96; 

on    Columcille,    123;    cited,     136; 

Poetae  Latini,  cited,  234,  278. 
Strassburg,  57, 
Strathclyde,  186. 
Strathearn,  242. 
Stokes,   Roy.   I.  Acad.,  Proceedings, 

quoted,  231. 
Stuarts,  162. 
Stubb's  Dunstan,  cited,  96 ;  cited,  232, 

;?68;  Diet,  of  Chr.  Biog.,  cited,  271 ; 

Select  Charters,  cited,  304. 
Suadbar,  187,  188. 
Sulger,  55,  61. 
Sussex,  270, 
Sweetman,   Calendar  of  Documents, 

cited,  93, 
Swords,  founded  by  Columcille,  127. 
Symcon    of    Durham,    ed.    Arnold, 

cited,  274 ;  Historia  Regum,  quoted, 

305  ;  cited,  322,  325  ;  Historia,  cited, 

329;   cited,  330. 
Synod  of  Armagh,  on  slavery,  310. 
Synod  of  Drumceat,  66-67. 
Synod  of  Pincanhalth,  290. 
Synod  of  Whitby,  230-232,  240;  not 

end  of  Irish  influence  in  England, 

262,  284. 


360 


Inde: 


Tacitus  on  Ireland,  cited,  89;  Life  of 
Agricola,  quoted,   103. 

Tadcaster,  222. 

Tailtenn,  66,  112;  synod  at,  129. 

Tain,  cited,  89,  120. 

Taine,  Hist,  of  Eng.  Lit.,  cited  or 
quoted,  288,  289,  290,  291-292. 

Talorcan,  214. 

Tara,  66,  102 ;  cursing  of,  by  Colum- 
cille,  108,  112;  Parliament  of,  128; 
Parliament  of,  Adamnan  at,  152, 
158. 

Tara  Brooch,  12,  74. 

Taranto,  Cathaldus  in,   18. 

Tatwine,  Archbishop,  252. 

Taylor,  John,  Pennyles  Pilgrimage, 
quoted,  317. 

Tenth  century,  work  of  Irish  in  En- 
gland, 277. 

Tertullian,   181. 

Tewdor  ap  Rhain,  174. 

Thanet,  200. 

Theodore,  3,  224,  232,  258,  260;  and 
"Molossian  Hounds"  at  Canter- 
bury, 264-268,  271,  285,  286,  304. 

Theodosius  (the  elder),  165-166. 

Theodulph  of  Orleans,  80. 

Thesaurus  Palaeohibernicus,  referred 
to,  4. 

Thomond,  school  of,  35. 

Thomas,  Bishop,  241. 

Thorneyburn,  224. 

"Three  Fragments"  of  Irish  Annals, 
quoted,  214-215. 


Tigerneach,  cited,  114,  154,  178,  202; 
quoted,  215,  272. 

Tilbury,  227,  249. 

Tir  Conaill,  wealth  of  literati  in,  67. 

Tirowen,  162. 

Todd,  ed.  War  of  the  Gaels  with  the 
Galls,  cited,  145;  Proc.  Roy.  L 
Acad.,  quoted,  266. 

Torna-Eices,  poem  of,  168. 

Tostig,  288-289. 

Toul,  Irish  in,  11,  17, 

Tours,  Irish  in,  il. 

Traube,  on  Irish  libraries,  76;  cited, 
188;  Perrona  Scotorum,  Abhand- 
lungen  der  Bay.  Akad.,  cited,  260. 

Trias  Thaum.,  cited,  142. 

Tribes  and  Customs  of  Hy-Many, 
cited,  309. 

Trivium,  37. 

Tropic  of   Cancer,  Irish  at,   189. 

Trouveres,  121. 

Trumbert,  Bishop,  cross  of,  282. 

Trumhere,  226,  248,  271. 

Trumwine's  Cross,  282. 

Tuda,  234, 

Tunberht,  271. 

Turin,  81. 

Turner,  History  of  Philosophy, 
quoted,  24;  Hist,  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  cited,  288,  289. 

Tutilo   (Tuthail)   of  St.  Gall,  21-22. 

Twelve  Apostles  of  Erin,  105,  124. 

Tyrconnell,  founded,  107,  162. 

Tyrone,  founded,  107. 


U 


Ua  Domnaill,  148. 

Ua   Dubhiaighe    (O'Dooley),   family 

of,  307. 
Ua  Ceallaigh  (O'Kelly)  family,  309- 

310. 
Ua  Clerigh,  Ireland  to  the  Norman 

Conquest,  cited,  185. 
Ui  Liathain,  173. 
Ui  Maine,  309-310. 


Ultan,  16,  21 ;  modesty  of,  23,  244, 

247,  258,  274. 
Ulster,  kingdom  of,  formed,  107,  115; 

kings    of,    161 ;    Irishmen    of,    in 

North  Britain  and   North  Wales, 

161. 
Ulster  J.  of  Arch.,  cited,  192. 
Urbs  Coludi,  221. 
Ursicinus,    at    Mont    Terrible,    15; 


361 


Index 


founds  hospital  at  St.  Ursanne,  i8. 
Ursgeula,  Irish,   iio-iii. 
Usnach,  66. 
Usshcr,    Britannicarum    Ecclesiarum 

Antiquitates,  referred  to,  9. 


Ussher,  note  on  Ireland,  30;  cited, 
34;  Relig.  Ant.  Irish,  cited,  192; 
cited,  202. 


Valentia,  166. 
Valentinian,  165. 
Verdun,  Irish  in,  11,  17. 
Vespasiania,   Irish   Scots   in,   113. 
Victorius   of   Aquitane,   Columbanus 

on,  70-71. 
Virgilius  of   Salzburg,   22;   modesty 

of,  23. 


Vision  of  Adamnan,  154. 

Visions  of  Fursa,  246-247. 

Vita  Oswaldi,  Reginald  of  Durham, 

Simeon  of  Durham,  cited,  215. 
Vita  S.  Fursae,  cited,  245. 
Vortigern,  159. 
Vulgate  of  St.  John,  first  translation 

of,  in  Ireland,  127. 


W 


Waldebert,  ruled  Luxeuil,  2Z. 

Wales,  Irish  rule  in,  9,  59;  Irish  col- 
ony, 103;  Irish  conquest  of,  159- 
160;  Irish  in,  161,  163;  never  en- 
tirely under  Roman  rule,  166-167; 
medieval  Irish  colony,  170-174; 
Ogham  inscriptions  in,  171 ;  clan 
names  in,  173;  Irish  in,  175-189; 
end  of  Irish  rule  in,  178-179;  Chris- 
tianity in,  181 ;  Irish  foundations 
in,  181-186;  monasteries  in,  181- 
186;  Easter  in,  187;  first  knowl- 
edge of  history  of,  187. 

Wallace,  316. 

Walter  of  Coventry,  Mentoriale, 
cited,  222. 

Walton-le-dale,  224. 

Wandresgisel  founds  Fontenelles,  18. 

Ward,  Vita  Rumoldi,  cited,  78,  272. 

Wardlaw  Manuscript,  cited,  317. 

Ware,  Irish   Writers,  cited,  42,  220. 

Wareham,  250,  269. 

Waterford,  Ogham  inscriptions  in, 
171. 

Watling  Street,  178. 

Wattenbach,  Ulster  Journal  of 
Archeology,  cited,  83. 

Wearraouth,  Adamnan  at,  152. 

Webb,  quoted,  76. 

Welsh,  language,  Irish  words  in,  178; 

362 


church,  187;  Triads,  201;  marriage 

of  Norman-French  with,  297. 
Wenlock,  224. 
Wessex,     194;    Maelduf    and    other 

Irishmen  in,  250-253, 
West  Saxons,  Irish  mission  among, 

241-243,  244. 
Wexford  Haven,  177. 
Wexford  Harbor,  185. 
Westminster    Abbey,    stone   beneath 

throne  at,  Irish,  135. 
Wharton,  Anglia  Sacra,  cited,  277. 
Whitby,  ID,  221-223,  225;  Synod  of, 

229,  271,  273. 
Wilfrid  of  York,  57,  220;  (2nd),  222, 

229;    archbishop    of    York,    232; 

Bishop,  248;  letter  to,  257,  264,  271. 
William   of   Malmesbury,   cited   and 

quoted,  185,  206,  240,  250,  251,  253, 

259,  261,  276;  Anglia  Sacra,  cited, 

303,    305,    306,    309;    De    Gestis 

Regum,  cited,  304,  305,  309;  Gesta 

Pontificum,  cited,  258. 
William  of  Orange,  299. 
William  of  Newburgh,  cited,  325. 
William  the  Lion,  323,  325- 
Willibrord,  56. 
Wilts,  172. 
Wimborne,  223,  224. 
Winchester,  242. 


Inde: 


Wini,  243. 

Wiro,  founds  St.  Peter's  monastery, 

16,  17. 
Wittering,  church  of,  281. 
Wodcnysburgh,  battle  of,  202. 
Wood,   Hist,   and  Antiquit.,  quoted, 

69. 
Workman,     Evolution     of     Monas- 

ticism,  cited,  223. 


Wright,  Thomas,  276. 

Writing  of  the  Tain,  quoted,   168. 

Wyntoun,   Orygynale  Crony  kit,  318- 

319;      Andrew,      322;      Orygynale 

Cronykil,  cited,  233' 
Wulfstan,   sermon   ad   Anglos,   292- 

293. 
Wulstan,  Latin  life  of,  305. 


X 

•Xenia,"   134. 


York,  3,  272,  273. 


I  Yorkshire,  205. 


Zeuss,  72;   Grammatica  Celtica,   160.   I       12,  48,   56;   cited,  95-96;   Pelagius 
Zimmer,    Preussiche    Jahrbiicher,    7,  I       in  Ireland,  162,  280. 


W.  B.  C. 


363 


Date  Due 

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